Gaige the Mechromancer Huntress
by Panzer4life
Summary: After discovering Handsome Jack still lives and destroying an Eridian artifact, Gaige is somehow transported to Remnant. How will the Mechromancer deal with the threats that are poised to send Remnant into chaos and the news that Jack is up to something? Follow Gaige the Mechromancer as she lives int he world of RWBY. Rate M for violence and language.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So yeah, not going to say much other than the following; I don't own either 'RWBY' nor the 'Borderlands' franchise. They are property of their respective owners, and as such this story is a non-profit work. Alright, let's get to the ANARCHY! I mean story**.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: A New Adventure Begins<strong>

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><p>"Well, that's the last of them," muttered a girl with red hair. She was wearing a blue jacket, orange skirt, and long striped socks. She began to twirl her Jakobs revolver which was called Rex in her non-robotic right hand as she gazed upon the carnage in front of her.<p>

In front of her laid a literal blood bath of ripped limbs, shattered skulls, and pools of blood from her attack. She sighed as this was supposed to be an easy mission; find some artifact for Tannis and get back. But no, nothing on Pandora was ever that easy, as what Tannis failed to mention was that the artifact was in a cave filled to the brim with threshers and stalkers.

"Gaige, everything alright?" asked a voice. Gaige jumped as she forgot that her echo communicator was on.

"Yeah Axton, everything is fine," Gaige replied. "I just had to kill so many stalkers and threshers for no good reason other than the artifact Tannis wants are in the cave." He heard the Commando chuckle.

"Hehe, reminds me of the days when the gang would go collect 'samples' for Tannis," he said. "That or kill the poor souls Hyperion tortured in their eridium experiments."

Gaige nodded solemnly. She couldn't forget all the people who suffered at the hands of Handsome Jack, Hyperion's tyrant leader. Krieg who lost his family (thankfully he reunited with Tiny Tina) and his psyche, Bloodwing who was experimented on like a lab rat, and finally Angel and Roland. Gaige felt her heart twist at the thought of Angel dying trying to stop her father and saw her death as merciful. And Roland's death, well, it was nothing but fuel to the fire for the rest of the Vault Hunters.

"Yo kid, you still with me?" Gaige felt herself shaken from the memories by Axton's question.

"Yeah, just thinking about how much good we did by putting Handsome Jack down," Gaige replied. "Son of a bitch deserved worse, far worse than a bullet to the head for what he did."

"That he did," Axton answered. "But enough chit-chat, get the artifact and return to Sanctuary, there's a skag steak with your name on it."

"Yeah, I just need to find the artifact at this point," Gaige said. "See you when the quest is done." She quickly turned off her echo communicator, and sighed. "Great, now what was it I was looking for?"

She pulled out Tannis's notes and saw she was looking what could be described as an octagonal eridian relic with black markings. Apparently it was important to the Vault Key, so Tannis wanted it. Gaige put the note in her pocket and began sifting through the cave and the bodies, disgusted with how messy the cave became with the eviscerated threshers and stalkers.

After not finding it in the part of the cave she was in, Gaige moved a bit deeper in the cave. Oddly enough, despite there being the telltale signs of a stalker infestation, she didn't run into any more of the blasted devils. Gaige was going to wonder what was going on when she tripped.

"The fuck?" Gaige asked to herself. "What the fuck did I trip on now?" Checking her feet, she saw what she first thought was a vine; only it seemed a bit too bright. She grabbed ahold of the vine, groaning at the realization of what it was.

"Alright, let me guess, I bet someone, probably Hyperion, is also after the relic," Gaige said to no one. "Great, this keeps getting better and better." She checked the ammo in her Rex revolver, glad that it was completely reloaded. She didn't need to run into a badass WAR loader with only a single round in the chamber.

She cautiously walked deeper in the cave, growing more and more paranoid at the lack of any activity. She thought that Hyperion would've at least laid out turrets, had gun loaders patrolling the cave tunnel, hell even had some 'paid' bandits keep unwanted visitors from getting to the relic. But as far as she could tell, there wasn't anything.

"God damn it, if Tannis sent me on a goose chase quest, I swear I will kick her ass," Gaige muttered. She jumped down a ledge, sighing when nothing happened. She was getting bored; she wanted to test out what her conference call would do with max anarchy. She was about to think this quest was a waste of time when she saw that at the end of the tunnel was the relic.

"Huh, I guess I can just grab it and leave," Gaige said. She walked up to the relic and looked around it, wanting to make sure that there were no bombs, traps, or pop up turrets that would emerge should she go after it. After a minute of probing around the pedestal that the relic was on and satisfied that nothing was laid to screw her over, Gaige grabbed the relic, hearing a soft click as she removed it.

"Oh, ain't this a surprise," said an arrogant voice that sent chills down Gaige's spine. "Did you seriously think I wasn't looking for other Eridian relics other than the Warrior, did you?"

"No, it can't be," Gaige said, turning around, and seeing a monitor behind her with a face she was all too aware of. "NO, you died in Hero's Pass when Axton BLEW YOUR HEAD OFF!" But the man that caused her so much suffering was staring back at her through the monitor.

"Come on, did you think that me and my top lieutenants didn't have a New-U account?" said Handsome Jack, smirking at the fear that was apparent on Gaige's face. "Did you Vault Hunters seriously thought that I wouldn't have some back up plan in case you ass hats fucked everything up?!"

Gaige was about to shoot the monitor when she felt the cave starting to shake. She looked up and saw that falling from the ceiling were what appeared to be five steel cubes. But she knew better, and sure enough, she saw these boxes unfurl into the bastardization that she knew to be Badass Loaders. She then saw to her horror a pair of Constructors deploy and began deploying several turrets and ION Loaders.

"Yeah, didn't think to look up to see if I had any forces to prevent your escape, now did ya?" Jack asked, a shit eating grin on his face. "Oh, by the way, this cave, it's actually a bunker that designed to stop anyone from exiting or entering if I want, so I doubt you can get out through the blast doors. Not that I think you can get past all the loaders, constructors, turrets, and drones."

"You bastard!" Gaige yelled. "What do you intend to do now, retake Pandora? Everyone knows you can be beaten, and they…"

"Who said anything about retaking Pandora?" Jack asked, shrugging as though taking over a planet wasn't a big deal. "But hey, it's not like everyone in Sanctuary has lowered their guards and what not. But I have set my eyes on a greater goal. Thankfully, you guys were such idiots to be able to draw up a map of the other vaults on other planets while a Hyperion camera was able to record the map."

Gaige paled as the implications. Jack was willing to tear up Pandora for the Warrior, but at least Pandora was a back water planet. However, some of the other planets with Vaults were actually pretty peaceful and had stable populations. Gaige knew however Jack would do anything to get to those Vaults, even if it meant ripping apart a world.

"Anyway, I just wanted to leave you wallowing in despair at this one little tid-bit of information," Jack stated. "You can't get any chance to warn your bandit scum friends in Sanctuary as I blocked any signals from your echo communicator, you can't use a fast travel station for the one in the room is disconnected, and I also canceled your Hyperion New-U account. So, enjoy your death; this is for my daughter."

The monitor went black, and Gaige felt her anger boiling over. Jack was alive, he was going to rip apart planets other than Pandora for the Vaults, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do. She rage overtook her, and she began firing Rex as fast as she could possibly.

"DAMN YOU JACK!" she yelled. "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!" She deployed Deathtrap, who began eviscerating through the turrets and drones with such fervor. However, Gaige knew she was in trouble. Her shield was designed with maximizing capacity, but the ION loaders would fry the shield in no time, leaving her wide open for the Super badass Loaders to kill her.

She quickly took cover behind the pedestal, hoping that the cover it provided would last a few seconds for her to plan. She began to consider her options. She could try and fight her way out, but with all the drones repairing and shielding the other Loaders, and the huge hit pool that was standing in front of her, it would probably be a one way trip. But with no other alternatives, what could she do?

Gaige pulled out her caustic Conference Call, and began pouring fire into the mass of Loaders. The pellets began ricocheting off the walls and soon Gaige saw the damage she was inflicting. The loader's armor began to corrode under the acid of the pellets, and several drones and turrets where knocked out quickly.

Gaige threw out several acid MIRV grenades, but she saw that the ION loaders had moved forward and begun shielding the other loaders from the fire of her Conference Call. She growled, annoyed that Hyperion were undoubtable very capable of creating battle worthy mechs. She needed to switch tactics.

"Deathtrap, get in and kill the ION loaders!" Gaige called out while she switched to her Vladof Electric Shredifier. She needed to knock out the ION loaders if she wanted to take out the rest of the loaders. She began laying down a lead wall, hoping to do something, but the bullets deflected off the shields. Worse still, Deathtrap began to sustain heavy damage from both the gunfire and the Ion shields the loaders were using as cover and was seconds away from behind deconstructed, and the ION loaders were continually being repaired by the drones that the constructors were making.

"Shit, what do I do now?!" Gaige asked. She threw her MIRV grenades before the ION loaders had deployed their shields, so she was out. She didn't trust her odds of hitting what she was aiming at with a Nukem due to both the large blast and the large stack of anarchy she had. And now the loaders were all taking aim, readying themselves to take Gaige out in a single volley of fire.

Gaige took out the black Eridian relic and cursed her luck for accepting the quest by herself. She knew she should've asked anyone for help. If she had someone here, then maybe the loaders could be dealt with and she could figure a way past the blast doors. But the others deserved a break from all the missions, after the long hard fight against Handsome and Hyperion.

Axton and the original Vault Hunters was busy training the citizens of Sanctuary so they could defense themselves without the Vault hunters. Maya, Zero, and Salvador were busy taking down various bandit camps. Krieg was trying to regain his sanity so he could raise Tina. Gaige was the only one with no goals, and her entire reason for being a Vault hunter stemmed from accidently killing Marcie and running to Pandora to evade prison.

Gaige knew that the tiny pedestal wouldn't last very long under a barrage of bullets, and that if this relic was important to Handsome Jack in some way, well it was better out of his hand. She placed Rex's barrel against the relic, taking a moment to clear her mind.

"Fuck it, if it screws over Handsome Jack, it will be worth it," she muttered. She pulled the trigger, expecting the relic to shatter to a millions pieces followed by her being riddles into a million pieces.

However, that was not what happened. The first part happened, Rex's bullet shattered the Eridian relic, however something else occurred. Instead of being riddle by the Loaders, Gaige was suddenly engulfed in a purple cloud. She looked as the cloud seemed to stem from the relic, and Gaige only had a moment to realize what was about to happen.

"Fuck my life!" Gaige said, unprepared for the sudden and very disorienting feeling of being teleported by the relic, very similar to when Lilith phased her and the others out of Sanctuary during the lunar bombardment. Her vision became filled with strange symbols, visions of things she didn't recognized. Black creatures with crimson red eyes rampaging through villages, and people using something to burn, shock, crush, and brush aside these creatures.

It felt like hours before these visions receded, and Gaige felt herself dumped in some… place. Gaige was sitting on the ground, and she began to take in her surroundings. First off, wherever she was, it certainly wasn't the cave where she would've died. Instead it appeared to be some back alley, as around her were two buildings, a chain link fence that blocked off the alley at one end, and a couple of garbage cans.

Secondly, as it was night, Gaige peered at the moon, only to not be seeing Hyperion Moon base Helios. Instead, there was nothing obstructing the moon, but the moon looked like it had a chunk of it missing, as though someone blasted it with some powerful weapon. Also, the night seemed darker here than it did on Pandora. Gaige sighed as she pulled out her echo device, hoping to confirm her suspicions.

"Error, no active echo satellites, off-platform databases, New-U stations, or Fast Travel Stations detected," announced the device. "Please contact your local Dahl representative for instructions to reconnect your Echo device."

"Well, this is great," Gaige said, leaning on the building. "Not only do I not know where I am, but I am not connected to anything to help me out. I might as well check if my gear is still in my Digi-pack."

Gaige scrolled to her inventory, and immediately groaned. Not only had her echo device lost connection to anything that could help her out, she was missing a number of her most valuable weapons. Amongst these were all (except for Rex) of her Legendary-rarity guns, grenade mods, and shields. What she had left for weapons and equipment left her very much annoyed.

For firearms, her only legendary loot was the Jacobs Rex, her trusty and well-loved high powered revolver. She would need it for when things got heated, as the rest of the loot was unimpressive. She had a Vladof Spinigun, which had only a fifty round magazine and no elemental effects. She did have a Dahl Surgical Terror that had a corrosive effect, but since Gaige was running around using anarchy to do extra damage at the cost of accuracy, it was dead weight except at close range. Her last weapon was a Jakobs Coach Gun that had decent stats, but nothing like her Conference Call.

For other equipment, she only had an incendiary bouncy grenade mod, something she didn't want to use. She hated how the damn things kept bouncing around for seemingly forever, and often times missed their target. For a shield, it was a Turtle Shield, which offered her incredible amount of shields at the cost of some of her health which was fine when she wasn't taking on anything that could drain her shields like it was nothing. Her relic which she had equipped increase damage and accuracy with her pistol, something she intended to take full advantage of. And then finally her class mod was a Swift Anarchist mod, which improved the speed of her Deathtrap.

Speaking of which, she wanted to see if her skills had changed during the trip. A quick look at her skills informed her that still had her build that she was using before she phased out of the cave. She tried to maximize her anarchy skill, getting buffs to both the number of stacks she could have and the rate she acquired them. She also had it to where she would deploy a digi-struct claws in she would melee an enemy, her bullets would have a good chance to ricochet, and that her shields were buffed.

"Good to see my skills didn't go away," Gaige muttered while she deployed Deathtrap. "I better make sure everything is working on Deathtrap before I leave the alley." Deathtrap deployed, revealing his claws, skull face, and blood red body frame. Deathtrap had been Gaige's friend ever since she been forced to Pandora to evade the police, and she wanted to make sure he was alright. It scanned the area for threat while Gaige made certain nothing was wrong.

She frowned as she reviewed the codes for Deathtrap; the codes indicated that Deathtrap would need both software and hardware upgrades. He was running around 30% slower than he should be, due to the number of upgrades Gaige had installed on him to improve his melee combat ability, which were causing unnecessary lag. In terms of hardware, Deathtrap's armor and weapons were in bad need of repair, as the fighting on Pandora weren't kind to the robotic killer butler.

"Sorry D-T for the lack of attention as of late," Gaige apologized to Deathtrap. "When I figure out where we are and get to a workshop, you are getting a much needed refit." Deathtrap nodded, and calmly Gaige recalled him, having added that feature to him after the fight against the Warrior. Gaige glanced at the moon, before deciding to wait until morning to figure out what the hell she was going to do. She closed her eyes, and let sleep overtake her weary body.

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><p>When she awoke, Gaige groaned. Sleeping while leaning on the wall caused her to have significant pain in her neck, and her joints were stiff. She began to stretch, wondering where she should begin in her search in determining where the fuck she was. Better get out of this alley and look around, she thought to herself. She got up, and after dusting herself off and getting Rex ready for a fight, Gaige left the alley.<p>

What she saw reminded her a little bit of Lynchwood. The buildings looked to be worn by weather and time, there was a high street which was open, and finally it was dusty. However, one thing stood out for her; there wasn't anyone around. She was used to something, be it bandits trying to kill her, some poor soul who had a quest for her, or someone that didn't pose a threat to her. However, in this town, there was no one.

"Hello?" Gaige called out. "Is there anyone here?" After a minute of silence Gaige shuddered. "Great, I'm in a ghost town. I might as well see if there is anything in these buildings that will tell me where I am."

She walked down the street, scanning the buildings. Some were house, others were places of business, but not of the kind she was looking for. She was looking for either a book store or a library; she could find books that she use to determine where she was. If there were in a foreign language, then she would have to translate it with her echo device, which might take a few minutes to an hour. But since the store fronts were in English (thank god), she doubted she would need to translate anything.

As she got to the end of the street, she found a book store. Fist pumping the air in success, Gaige walked into the store. She began first by heading to the geography section of the store, and began pulling out various books. However, as she looked through the books, her heart plummeted at the growing realization.

Apparently, she was in the lands of some kingdom called 'Vale', on a planet called 'Remnant'. Gaige didn't recognized these names, but assumed that perhaps it was a new planet that was discovered while she was stuck on Pandora. Grabbing a book of the technological history, she began frantically looking through it to see when people landed on Remnant, only to come up blank.

To the best of her knowledge, the people of Remnant had always lived on Remnant, not arrived by a shuttle, exploration fleet, or mining operation rig. And as far as Gaige could tell, the citizens of Remnant didn't even have anything space worthy. Gaige smashed the table in frustration, her claws cutting the table into four sections.

"What the FUCK?!" she yelled. "How the hell did shooting that relic land me here?!" She was about to continue her little rampage of frustration when she heard a growl. Turning her head, she saw that deeper in the store were a pair of red eyes staring back at her.

"Um, that can't be good," Gaige said, readying Rex. Turns out her instincts were right.

Leaping out of the shadows was a black beast that rivaled Krieg in size. It had shaggy fur, with bone white spikes protruding from its back, elbows, and knees, with what appeared to be a bone crust over its face. On the face crust was a red pattern that connected with the blood red eyes. It looked like a bipedal wolf in Gaige's mind.

Instead of waiting, Gaige began firing Rex, hoping to kill the beast, whatever it was, before it did anything too crazy. She fired a shot and watched as the bullet hit the ceiling and ricochet and hit the beast in the arm. The beast howled in pain, and blood began dripping on the ground from the wound. However, before Gaige realized it, the beast charged her.

Within a second it was on top of her, and it slashed right at Gaige. Gaige was glad that she had her shield on, as the slash ended up taking half the shields in one blow.

"That fuck?!" Gaige yelled in surprise. On Pandora, most of the enemies that didn't have any electrical weapons had a hard time dealing with shields. Melee opponents could do a bit better against shields, but now were as strong as this.

She fired Rex rapidly, pumping rounds into the beast. Even with her four hundred stacks, at this range all the bullets hit where she was intending. The beast howled one last time before collapsing dead, a pool of blood beginning to soak into the ground.

"Well, that's over," she said, when she heard what sounded like more growls deeper in the store. Gaige reloaded Rex, cursing herself for thinking that there was only one threat. She contemplated deploying Deathtrap, but decided to reserve him only if the beasts either became too much to handle or if a super badass version of them came out.

Out of the shadows emerged a dozen more of the beast, all charging at her. Gaige fired off the magazine of Rex, taking one more of the beast down before she began to run out of the store. She quickly swapped out Rex for the Vladof Spinigun, hoping that the magazine capacity would be enough to keep her safe.

Once in the street, Gaige turned around and began firing at the pack of beasts.

"Take this suckers!" she taunted, watching her bullets either rip into the beasts or ricochet and hit them anyway. She managed to take down three more before any of the beast emerged from the shop, but when they did they quickly closed the gap.

Four went around her while four charged straight at her. The larger of the beast had a cracked crust, and he swiped at Gaige, who narrowly avoided it by rolling out of the way. She reloaded the Spingun and began firing it, killing another beast only to be forced to roll out of the way again by the other beasts.

"Damn it, these creatures are much more aggressive than the beasts of Pandora," Gaige muttered. "I can't get the Spinigun to fire at its maximum, so better switch to the Coach Gun."

She switched again, pulling out the double barrel shotgun. She fired both barrels at one of the smaller beast, and it took the head clean off. She then saw all the beast charge at her again, and Gaige groaned.

"Fuck it," she muttered. "Deathtrap, take care of these pests!" Raising her hand in a wave, Deathtrap digi-constructed behind a smaller beast and slashed him across the back. The beast howled and took a swipe at Deathtrap, only to cause a minor scratch to the mechanical Grim Reaper. Deathtrap replied with a laser to the beast's face.

Gaige meanwhile had begun to fire/reload at a rapid rate, trying to force the beast to keep their distance. An advantage with her build was that she was able to reload and fire her Coach Gun fast enough to keep the beast at bay.

She was about to fire upon a smaller beast when the large one with the cracked crust let out a loud howl and charged at Gaige, knocking her to the ground. The beast then stepped on her arm, preventing her from raising the Coach Gun or swiping at the beast. Gaige turned to see Deathtrap had his hand full taking care of the three other beasts.

_This seriously can't be the end for me, can it_, she thought as the beast snarled at her. She watched as it raised its hand, readying to strike her down. She closed her eyes, expecting the strike to rip past her shields and kill her when a crack broke through the air.

The large beast stumbled off of her arm, and Gaige wasted no time blasting the beast away with the Coach Gun. All the pellets managed to hit the beast, most in the arms and chest, but a few contacted the head. The beast collapsed in a bloody heap, and Gaige got up, to see Deathtrap unleash a flurry of strikes against the last of the minor beasts, ripping him into ribbons.

"That's the last of them," Gaige muttered. She recalled Deathtrap, seeing no more need to keep him out.

"Miss, what are you doing out here?" asked a man, based on the voice. Gaige turned and saw a man with matted down gray hair, with thick eyebrows and mustache. He wore a burgundy suit with gold linings and buttons. But what got Gaige's attention was the blunderbuss with an axe head in his hand.

"Don't you know how dangerous it is out here?" the man asked without giving Gaige a chance to answer. "You could've been killed by that Beowulf pack had it not been for me getting that Alpha Beowulf off of you."

"I-" Gaige began before being interrupted.

"I mean, this town was abandoned last week when the Grimm overran the defenses," the man continued. "All citizens of the town were reported as having been evacuated, so please tell me-" At this point Gaige lost her patience.

"Look, all I know is that I found myself in this town sometime last night, I get up this morning, try to figure out where the hell I am, get attack by those - what did you call them, ah yes- beowolves, and I only got into that position of nearly dying because the Alpha charged me and crushed my arm. Otherwise, if you see, I did kill an entire pack, with you only helping get the Alpha off of me. So please, give me a second to answer your question!"

The man stared back at Gaige, his blunderbuss being lowered to the ground. He stared silent for a minute before sighing.

"Miss, how about we begin with your name, what is your name?" the man asked.

"It's Gaige, no last name," Gaige replied. She did have a last name, but in all her time on Pandora she had yet to meet someone who insisted on knowing a last name, let alone actually used one.

"Alright Ms. Gaige, my name is Professor Port, Huntsman and professor. Now, can you explain how and why you are here?" Gaige was about to reply when she heard a series of explosions. Turning around, she saw a number of aircraft dropping bombs, still outside the city, but getting closer. Port sighed.

"Damn military," he muttered. "They're all too eager to bomb the Grimm and destroy months of efforts to expand the kingdom. Never mind, follow me Ms. Gaige, it isn't safe here." He began walking away, and Gaige sighed.

_Well, I guess this is great, _Gaige thought_. I am on an unknown planet, forced to follow a guy who I barely just met, and already escaped death once today. Deja fucking vu. _

Gaige slid her put away her Coach Gun and pulled out Rex. She followed Port, as he was currently the only person she knew. Meanwhile, Port continued to talk to Gaige.

"Ms. Gaige, your encounter in the town will have to be debriefed," Port said. "However, if what you said is true, then the debriefing will take place where I teach students to become Huntsman and Huntresses. So we will be taking a Bulkhead straight to Beacon academy. Any questions before we leave?"

Gaige pondered for a minute, thinking about what to ask, when she thought of a quick and easy question to ask.

"How long until we get to Beacon?"

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><p><strong>AN: Well, this is the first chapter, so not much to discuss other than a few things. **

**First off, the relic that Gaige shattered will become important later. What it does and how it works won't be revealed yet.**

**Secondly, on the fact that Jack (and his lieutenants) being alive, that is for plot reasons. I always wondered how the player could die and get resurrected by the Hyperion New-U station. Wouldn't Jack want to oh I don't know shut down their accounts? And why didn't Jack, Wilhelm, Nisha (sheriff of Lynchwood), or the countless other Hyperion soldiers/officials didn't have a New-U account; it would make sense if they did.**

**Next, I don't want Gaige being super powerful, sure, she is at least level 30, but she doesn't have any super epic loot to make her a indestructible war machine. Now on how Gaige will fare in combat, I have my thoughts. She is used to facing enemies that are hard to kill and come in hordes, so she is used to focusing on damage output over finesse, which is perfect when on Pandora. But I can see the enemies of Remnant giving her problems, as they focus on speed and aggression. The grimm are the perfect example; they charge in, hoping to overwhelm the enemy with their strength and speed, much different from say a WAR loader, which focus on dealing damage from afar and being able to tank hits.**

**Finally, as to character relations, I don't intend to have Gaige get along with everyone. She is still the anarchist we all love, and thus she is going to have an issue with authority and those she views as being full of themselves.**

**But enough of me talking, see you next time with the second Chapter. As always, please follow, favorite, and review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Debriefing and an Opportunity**

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><p>Gaige had been waiting in the small interrogation room for about two and a half hours, waiting on Professor Port and his colleagues to get back to her. She sighed when she had all of her weapons, shields, mods, and echo device confiscated by some blonde woman with green eyes behind a pair of glasses. She never felt so unarmed since she first arrived on Pandora, and she hated not having her guns.<p>

Thankfully, no one thought to remove Gaige's mechanical arm which had the digi-constructor for Deathtrap and her claws. Granted, it probably was because it was indeed her arm, and maybe Professor Port didn't know that it was responsible for deploying Deathtrap, but still…

She was interrupted from her musings by the door opening. She saw a man with gray hair, glasses covering his brown eyes, wearing a black suit and had a green scarf around his neck, with a silver cross on said scarf. He had a cane in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

He took a seat opposite of Gaige and pulled out a small PDA device. He pressed a few buttons that showed Gaige's encounter with Handsome Jack, the ensuing firefight, her destroying the relic, and the fight with the Beowulf pack. Gaige paled; she knew that this man now knew she wasn't from around here, and she had no one backing her up, no one coming to rescue her, and no real explanation that could begin to explain her situation.

"So, Ms. Gaige," the man began. "I am most intrigued about this video and the information extracted from you, 'echo device'. Would you mind answering few questions for me?" Gaige nodded numbly, not sure what to expect.

"First off, I take it you aren't from Remnant, is that correct?" the man asked.

"That would be correct," Gaige said. "I was on Pandora before I ended up in that town sir."

While Gaige loved to say she was a total anarchist that was a lie. She could respect those in power, so long as they also respected they people they represented or were to protect. She hated self-serving assholes who were only interested in acquiring more wealth and power. Case in point; Handsome Jack.

"I see," the man said. "And what was that thing you shot that teleported you to Remnant?"

"It was an Eridian Relic," Gaige said. "It was something old, I wouldn't know why it teleported me here, but the Eridians who made it were quite advance. I couldn't give you a good answer, you would need to talk to someone who studied Eridian ruins for a living."

"Fair enough, now then, could you explain your situation in depth? I would like to know why the man on the monitor, Jack you called him, would want you dead?"

Gaige sighed, and began to explain her history. From leaving Eden-5 and being left on the Ice shelf when Jack blew the train up, to getting to Sanctuary, helping the resistance and the encounter with Angel, to finally the last raids and the assault through Heroes Pass. She described the fight against the warrior and how she and the other Vault Hunters believed they had kill Jack, only for her to encounter him once again in the cave.

"And then we get to now, with me having explained everything that happened on Pandora to you in roughly an hour, and I still don't know your name," Gaige said, wrapping up the lengthy summary. She hated how her echo device now couldn't store information past a week, which would've saved her a lot of time explaining, but she had done that tweak in an effort to speed up loading and processing time.

The man chuckled, putting aside his now empty cup of coffee. He locked his hands together, leaning his elbows on the table.

"Well, the name's Professor Ozpin," Ozpin said, introducing himself finally. "And while I normally would be skeptical of such a story, having reviewed your echo device, seen the kinds of things you described, and not seeing the usual signs of deceit while you spoke, I don't think you're lying."

"So now that we discussed you past, can you explain some other things?" Ozpin asked. "Such as why you are carrying four military grade weapons and various other items that are tailored for combat?"

"Well, On Pandora, you can't even be too well equipped," Gaige said, crossing her arms. "Between the creatures, the bandits, and Hyperion, I needed to carry a lot of firepower."

"I know," Ozpin said. "But why didn't you make your own weapon that suits your own needs?" Gaige shrugged.

"Well, it was easier acquiring weapons from Marcus and his vending machines than it was to make my own," Gaige explained. "Plus, Pandora wasn't the best planet to make my own weapon. If I was on Eden-5 back in my garage, then sure I could. But I was on Pandora, where the only weapons made on planet were those made by the bandits, and they weren't the best weapons around."

"Alright fair enough," Ozpin conceded. "Then would you mind explaining what these are?" He pulled out Gaige's shield, class mod, and relic.

"Ah, well first is my shield," Gaige began to explain. "It absorbs most incoming damage unless it is depleated, but it does recharge after a few seconds. The second is my class mod, it helps me in combat by helping me perform tasks to a higher degree, and finally is a relic that I don't know how to explain but it works like my class mod."

Ozpin nodded, keenly interested in the shield.

"So they are combat support to keep you alive and functioning to a higher degree?" Ozpin summarized. Gaige nodded. "Interesting. Anyway, on your echo device it mentions a D374-TP, what exactly is it?"

"Ah, that would be Deathtrap, my robotic companion," Gaige explained. She flicked her wrist, deploying Deathtrap so that Ozpin could see. "He is programmed to protect me and go after threats, and is able to attack in a variety of ways, though he usually goes for melee attacks."

"Impressive," Ozpin said. "So you can deploy Deathtrap anywhere, is that correct?" Gaige nodded.

"Yes, but due to the complex nature of digitally constructing him, I have to let the program cool down, otherwise it becomes laggy with redundant codes and it affects his combat performance," Gaige said.

She saw Ozpin rubbing his chin methodically, trying to think of what else to inquire about. He paused for a minute, as Gaige could tell her was gathering his thoughts.

"Ms. Gaige, I don't see you harming anyone in Vale, however, before I speak further, I must confer with my colleagues," Ozpin stated. He left the room, leaving Gaige to wonder; what was going to happen to her?

* * *

><p>Ozpin opened the door to his office, where the others were waiting, and already debating about their 'new arrival'.<p>

"I think she shouldn't be given special privilages just because of her circumstances," Glynda Goodwitch stated. The blonde was staring down his longtime friend James Ironwood, a General with the Atlesian Military.

"Did you not see her combat capabilities?!" Ironwood said sternly. "She managed to take on several military combat mechs that were better armed than anything the Atlesian military has come up with, all the while without much danger. Also, she managed to take down a pack of Beowolves, only requiring a tiny amount of help from Mr. Port; most new recruits wouldn't know how to handle even a single Grimm."

Ozpin shook his head. Why must Glynda and Ironwood get at it like two dogs that hate one another? He should've seriously never introduced those two together and let them date. He needed to end the bickering now.

"Everyone now is not the time to be fighting," Ozpin said, hoping to stop the two from getting into an unnecessary verbal bout. "I finished my discussion with Ms. Gaige, and it was… most enlightening."

"Did she explain what that thing she destroyed before teleporting was?" asked Professor Oobleck. Ozpin saw the green-hair hyper active professor bouncing in place, trying to contain the urge to zip around the room and fire off a plethora of questions.

"Apparently it was a relic," Ozpin said. "She couldn't explain herself, and she didn't think that it was even possible for her to teleport to her from where she was. So she was as surprised as we are." Ozpin was about to go forward but Glynda denied him the chance.

"So what do we do about her?" Glynda asked. "While it is obvious she isn't from Remnant, we can't allow her to stay at Beacon while we determine what to do with her. We have to prepare for the next term, which is one week away." Ironwood glared at Glynda.

"Ozpin, Ms. Gaige's weapons, while basic, do possess considerable firepower, especially that sniper rifle," Ironwood stated. "It can corrode steel, which means that against heavily armored Grimm it can provide a shift of balance. If she isn't fighting, then might I suggest we pick her brain so we can outfit our soldiers with more capable weapons?"

"James, you can't be serious," Glynda snapped back. "All you see is a new weapon to build and put onto the battlefield. For all we know she could've not made those weapons…"

"She didn't create those weapons," Ozpin interjected. "However, she was able to construct a personal combat robot, as she showed me." Ozpin showed the others in the room Gaige deploying Deathtrap.

"That is most impressive," Oobleck said, stating the opinion of everyone in the room. "Construction from seemingly nothing, a floating platform, decent armor, and clearly designed for close range support, this could be big for huntsman and huntresses that have to operate by themselves due to manpower restrictions."

"I agree," Port said. "While I wasn't glad that the young ma'am yelled at me, seeing things from her perspective made me understand her situation, and I won't argue with her mechanical know how. If nothing else, having her around for her mechanical know how would be useful. God only knows how many times new trainees are out of the field due to them failing to maintain their weapons."

"So, does anyone have any suggestion as to what we should do with Ms. Gaige?" Ozpin said. He saw Oobleck and Port about to suggest a multitude of ideas, so he had to clarify his stance. "I don't want spur of the moment ideas, just warning you." Those two seemed to back down for a moment, before Port finally spoke.

"Perhaps we could have Ms. Gaige work at Beacon as a weapon's officer?" he said. "When not working on repairing or modifying the trainees' weapons, she could work to build more of those personal robots for the graduated Hunters."

"I would suggest sending her to combat school to actually gain some discipline and technique," Glynda countered. "From the video logs she had, it didn't appear she was aiming so much as firing a volley of bullets downrange. I mean, such a technique would cause severe collateral damage."

"Actually,such a technique would prove useful against the Grimm," Oobleck countered. "The Grimm use numbers and try to rush any attackers. While it wasn't accurate, her fire was certainly devastating, so as a counter to Grimm threats, sending her into the field could prove useful."

Soon the discussion boiled into a three way argument, with Oobleck, Port, and Glynda arguing over whose idea was better. Ozpin turned to look at his old friend Ironwood, who seemed to be deep in thought. Quietly, he motioned Ironwood over.

"What is it?" Ozpin asked. Ironwood shrugged.

"It's nothing, but from the video log, having her attend a combat school would be a waste of potential," Ironwood said. "If she has the combat experience that you say she does-"

"Which she does," Ozpin said.

"-Then the best course would be fine tuning her skills even further," Ironwood continued. "Having her maintain other's weapons when she been in battle would cause her to grow restless, causing her to be sloppy. And sending her against the Grimm by herself, even with her robot, would amount to little more than ordering her death."

"Then what do you suggest?" Ozpin asked. Ironwood tucked his hands in his pocket.

"I suggest letting her attend Beacon, as it allows all their ideas to merge into one," Ironwood said confidently. "She gets the discipline Glynda wants out of her, she can work on her mechanical contraptions like Port suggest, and she would get out to the field to take out Grimm as Oobleck mentions. It's the best course of action with what little we can do to get her back to where she belongs."

The others heard this, and while Port and Oobleck seemed to take the suggestion in stride, Glynda looked a bit irked, but she remains silent. Ozpin nodded.

"Very well, if no one has any objection to having Ms. Gaige attend Beacon as a Huntress in training, then I shall inform her of this development."

* * *

><p>A few minutes passed before Ozpin returned to the interrogation room. Gaige had been wondering what he'd been talking about with his colleagues. Probably what to do with her she figured.<p>

"So, Ms. Gaige," Ozpin started. "I have discussed it with my colleagues, and I have an offer for you." Gaige raised an eyebrow; it wasn't that she was unused to offers. Rather it was normal for her, as on Pandora she had done many ridiculous things, all to earn money, loot, or more combat experience. She even was paid to shoot a Bandit in the face.

"What's the offer?" Gaige asked. Ozpin smiled.

"Until either you figure out how to return to Pandora, or you decide to stay, I am willingly to offer you a place at Beacon academy. You will train as a Huntress, whose duty will be to protect the citizens of the four kingdoms from the threat posed by the Grimm," Ozpin stated. Gaige nodded, knowing his position. He couldn't afford her to simply be a freeloader, so he would at least get something out of it.

"What are the terms?" Gaige asked. "What's in it for you and for me?" Ozpin handed Gaige a scroll, and on it was a list of things that would be granted to her and what she had to do in order to benefit from the deal.

"You woud need to maintain higher than average grades in the classes at Beacon, as you are from any of the lesser combat school," Ozpin began to explain. "Also, you will need to allow a close friend of mine examine your equipment. Finally, when you aren't busy doing examines, field training, or on missions, we would like you to help design more of those personal combat robots."

"You in return will be given room and board at Beacon, with the benefit of free standard meals, training from experienced hunters, access to a workshop where you can build and upgrade your equipment, with funds that are appropriated for you, and finally for missions you complete you will get money that you can use for personal things," Ozpin finished, taking a sip of his coffee, which he had refilled on the way back to the room.

Gaige thought it over. While she didn't like the thought of going 'back' to school, she didn't think it would pose to much of a challenge for her. After all, before being expelled, she was an all-A student, and she was the self-proclaimed 'greatest Engineer in the universe'. And as far as she cared, she didn't care if Ozpin's colleagues, as Ozpin wasn't anything like the corporate monsters that she had dealt with.

"Very well, I accept," Gaige said, extending her hand out to shake on the deal, which Ozpin returned. "Now, is there anything that I need to know before I start at Beacon?" Ozpin nodded.

"Indeed," he said. "You will need to understand a few things about Remnant that I don't believe you would have encountered on Pandora. You will need to understand basic history of the planet, the Grimm, and a few other things. You will also need to build a cover story to explain yourself, which Professor Oobleck will, in addition to the things I mentioned before, will help you with. Now, in the meantime, I would suggest getting some rest, as the next week will be extremely busy for you."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's notes: Not as long as the last chapter, yet this was a way to get some plot bunnies out of the way.<strong>

**First off, I employed the Echo Device having a video function so that Ozpin and the professors of Beacon (plus Ironwood) would know that Gaige wasn't from Remnant and not cause a shit-ton of problems down the line. But I am going to say this much before hand; Gaige isn't going to tell everyone she isn't from Remnant, only initially the Professors.**

**Second, Gaige's aura ability and semblance haven't been determined quite yet, but I am thinking something along the lines of a developed 'Little Big Trouble' tree, so manipulation of electricity or something. If you have any ideas, you can send me a PM or leave it in a review so I can get to it.**

**Finally, while Gaige is so far the only person from Pandora on Remnant, there will be others. Some will aid Gaige, others will try and harm her and her friends, but there will be no OCs from Pandora. All the people that come from Pandora to Remnant will be cannon characters. That said, I will be spicing them up to give the people of Remnant a run for their money.**

**Anyway guys, please follow, favorite and review! **

**PS: I thought of something after writing this chapter, and that was in Remnant there are combat droids (the Atlesian Knights are an example of this, as well as Penny) and operable mechs (that walking monstrosity that Roman was commanding before it got destroyed by team RWBY). So it brings up the question; how do Remant's robotic technology compare to Pandora's? Well, I won't go too much into detail right now, but I think it is a matter of function and form, which I will cover in a later chapter. You see, the situation on Remnant and Pandora are different with some similarity, and so it makes sense that while both have combat capable robots, they serve different purposes.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Welcome to beacon (Part One)**

* * *

><p>It had been a week, and as promised, Gaige was at the air terminal, waiting for the airship to arrive at the terminal and begin boarding. She was tired from the lessons that Oobleck had drilled into her, hoping that the cram lessons he gave her wouldn't be an indicator of his teaching at Beacon. But on the plus side, she was at least more prepared for the world she was now stuck in than she was before.<p>

* * *

><p>~<em>Flashback duration the start of the week before<em>~

Gaige arrived at the room that Oobleck was going to 'teach' (for some reason, the word seemed off, as she wasn't being taught but rather be brought up to speed on the nature of things on Remnant) her. It was a small room, with a small desk and chair in front of a larger wooden desk that had numerous textbooks and maps. But before she could get a closer look a man zipped behind the desk.

"Good Morning Ms. Gaige," said a green haired man wearing round glasses, a cup of coffee in hand. "My name is Professor Oobleck, and it is my pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Gaige said, a little uncertain on how Oobleck was able to zip past her without knowing. "So you are going to teach me some things about Remnant?" Oobleck nodded. He zipped again in front of her, with a couple of books in his hand.

"Indeed," he said. "My goal will be to get you immersed with Remnant that you can pass off as one of us and not cause undue panic by having someone figure you are from off planet."

"To this end, let us begin with the social and political standings of Remanant," Oobleck continued, appearing behind the large desk again. Gaige was confused as to how the man moved so far. "Where to begin- ah yes, first and foremost is that on Remnant you have humans and Faunus."

"Er, Faunus sir?" Gaige asked. "What exactly is a Faunus?" Oobleck took a sip of his coffee.

"Faunus are humans with animal characteristics," Oobleck answered. "Some have horns, tails, or they could simply have less noticeable traits. However, because of that difference, there are those within the human population that look down on Faunus, and this has caused social tensions between the two races."

Gaige nodded. While the thought of a human having animal bits on them was disconcerting at first, having dealt with far worse things like the poor souls that Jack experimented on with slag that became mindless killers, Gaige didn't think she would have a problem with dealing with the Faunus. Hopefully.

"As a result, while most Faunus are peaceful, there are those that have turned to… more extreme measures. The most prominent of these are the White Fang, a once peaceful organization that has become a terrorist cell, attacking those they think have wrong the Faunus. So please, respect Faunus like you would any normal person."

"I see," Gaige said. "So don't talk down to them, don't insult them, and don't treat them like animals, got it." Oobleck nodded.

"Next, let's talk about the four kingdoms," he said. "You have Vale, Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral. These four Kingdoms are safe havens from the threat of Grimm attacks, and thus are joined in a military alliance to help defend the Grimm. As such, Hunters from Atlas can go defend citizens from their own kingdom along with the citizens from the other three."

At this point, Oobleck took a sip of his coffee. Gaige was about to raise her hand to ask a question, she saw his eyes narrow slightly, as if in annoyance. Whatever he was about to say, it wasn't going to be pleasant.

"While these Kingdoms are technically allies, they all tend to compete to have the largest land," Oobleck stated. "As a result, they often try to expand into the contested lands. These lands are crawling with Grimm, and as such numerous attempts to colonize the land have failed, often at the cost of countless lives."

Gaige swallowed what little liquid was in her mouth. She knew on Pandora that settlements could just vanish, their citizens gone in a flash, with no trace. It could be due to bandits, Hyperion kidnaping them for 'experiments', the harsh weather, or the wildlife of Pandora. She sighed; Remnant sounds it has some of the problems plaguing Pandora.

"Anyway, I want you to open 'The History of Remnant' and turn to page 80," Oobleck ordered. "You will read the section while I discuss the major points the chapter talks about, as we have a lot to cover, and not much time." Gaige nodded, bracing herself for her time with Oobleck.

* * *

><p>~<em>five days later<em>~

"I'm impressed," Oobleck complimented Gaige. "Usually, most of my students fall asleep, or try and pretend they are following."

Gaige shrugged. She wasn't in a position to not know shit. She had to know about Remnant, and know it well if she was going to act like she was a native. And as such she was keeping pace with Oobleck's cram lessons.

The last three days were covering the politics of Remnants, the social customs of each of the four kingdoms, the Grimm, and the nature of the technology of Remnant. She found it odd that almost all the significant technology (weaponry, transportation, etc) were based around Dust, which in and of itself was described to her by Oobleck to be '_nature's wrath'_. She would've thought they would've developed something else to power their vehicles if Dust was used for the weaponry, but if Dust was plentiful, then why not? Though then again she only seen Eridium, the valuable alien element that came about from the opening of the first vault, to be used for weapons or the unethical science experiments Hyperion conducted.

Now though, Oobleck promised something 'more akin to what Gaige knew'. How would he know what was more 'akin to Gaige' you ask? The answer was simple; because Gaige informed him (and in turn the other professors) about life on Pandora, about the hardships, the constant fight for survival, and the state of technology she was used to. While they wanted to immerse Gaige in the world of Remnant, they also wanted to see what Pandora had to offer Remnant.

"Now then, today we will be crafting your weapon of choice," Oobleck said. He zipped to the door, opening in and allowing Professor Port in. Gaige grew to like Port; in a way he reminded her of Sir Hammerlock. Both men were extremely knowledged about the deadly creatures that inhabited their respective worlds, both acted like Gentlemen, and both loved weapons.

"Er, what's wrong with my weapons?" Gaige asked. "I mean, they served me well on Pandora, and while they aren't the best guns, they are sufficiently deadly to the Grimm."

"The problem isn't that your weapons are faulty," Port began. "Rather, they are singular in their purpose, the only exception being that sniper rifle you have, the Surgical Terror if I recall correctly. It has a corrosive effect, that when Ironwood tested on the drones the Atlesian military used ten years ago, it turned them into a pile of melted metal."

"But even with that added effect, your weapons have no secondary purpose," Port continued. "Take upcoming beacon student Pyrrha Nikos; her main weapon can transform into a spear, a sniper rifle, and a xiphos sword, thus giving her a plethora of options in the field. We were hoping to adapt one of your weapons to do the same."

Gaige took in this information in slowly. She had been looking over a catalog of weapons on her down time, and she was having a hard time comprehending the durability of said weapons. With so many moving parts to change the shape and function of the weapon, they either had to be made of extremely tough and durable material, making them extremely heavy, or they had to suffer a general loss of performance when compared to a more fit and formed weapon.

"But wouldn't her weapon suffer performance issues?" Gaige countered. "I mean, if we compare her weapon in its sniper rifle form to my Dahl Surgical Terror, I believe my weapon would outperform hers."

"And indeed you would be correct," Professor Port said, agreeing with the mechromancer. "However, with her having a combination weapon, she wouldn't need to carry any additional weapons, and could perform in the long term better, especially during lengthy extermination missions."

Gaige frowned. Why have a weapon whose performance is inferior to a comparable weapon just for the benefit of weight conservation? Then again, she remembered that even with the SDU packs that helped to lower the weight of her weapons, having more than four weapons, her shield, class mod, relic, and grenade mod would begin to take its toll on her. The SDU packs only managed to reduce the weight of the object down to fifty percent the original weight, so having more than four weapons meant taking in a ton of weight. In one case she nearly passed out after carrying sixty four kilos worth of guns.

"Fine, what were you two going to suggest I do with my weapons?" Gaige asked. "I really don't like the thought of modifying them to transform to some other weapon if it means a loss of performance, but I will hear you guys out. If however I find the idea to be terrible, then can we find a different solution?"

"I think that's a fair compromise," Port said. He pulled out a series of blueprints. "Very well, let us begin with your revolver. While right now it is powerful, as you used it to kill the Beowulf pack with relative ease, it could be even more powerful, and it could use a larger magazine capacity, raising the capacity from 8 to 9, while replacing the standard .44 FMJ rounds you were using with a .454 JHP round, which has almost triple the amount of joules in its impact. Beside that minor change, we would suggest having it to where you can have a deploying stock for improved long range shooting."

Gaige thought about it for a moment. Having an additional round in the cylinder, while it was only 1 round, was still a benefit, as her anarchy build did cause her to have reduce magazine capacity in exchange for faster reloads. And having nearly triple the power was worth it, but the stock was there for her to maintain control of her revolver.

"That's a good idea," Gaige said. "The two major things you would need to do would be re-chamber the barrel to accommodate the larger round and put in a new cylinder, along with strengthening the gun to handle the added recoil."

"Our thought's exactly," Oobleck said. "Now then, onto your Coach Gun. While it has incredible power and a high pellet count, it only has two chambers to load your rounds into. This means you have to make several reloads. But Port has a couple of ideas to improve on it."

Port nodded, showing Gaige the 'redesigned' Coach Gun. As port talked, Gaige saw that it was a radical departure from what Jakob's coach guns were. instead of having to load and reload two shells at a time, Port's designed worked around case-less shotgun shells where she could load up to ten shots at a time. In addition, the shotgun was designed to have a large blade underneath the barrel that rivaled some of the blades she saw on Bandit weapons. But there was a feature she didn't understand; why was there a switch next to the trigger?

"What does this switch do?" Gaige asked. Port chuckled.

"Why, it is the thing that makes this weapon all the more devastating," Port replied. "It enables you to empty your entire chamber with one trigger pull." Gaige paused, trying to do the math.

"Wait, how many pellets do the shells fire out?" Gaige asked.

"13 pellets per shell," Port said. "Which means that when you fire the shotgun with the switch turned on, you unleash 130 pellets in a single trigger pull."

Gaige chuckled at the thought of 130 pellets flying out in every direction, killing hordes of enemies in front of her. But the thought of empyting 10 shells at once made her shoulder scream in terror.

"I assume you are going to add recoil dampens in the stock, right?" Gaige asked hesitantly. Oobleck nodded.

"Yes, I told Port that if he didn't add that into the shotgun it could leave you with a shattered collarbone and shoulder. But I like to show you the plans for your sniper rifle."

Oobleck placed the blueprint in front of Gaige, and began describing the new changes to the weapon.

"First, we will control the recoil generated by the burst fire feature by adding a couple recoil absorbers and a muzzle brake," Oobleck said. "Next we would expand the magazine capacity from 8 rounds to 14. And then finally we would improve the scope to have Night-vision capabilities and thermal vision."

"Alright, I like the sound of that," Gaige said. While she wasn't the go to sniper (that was Zero's area of expertise) Whenever Gaige had a sniper rifle at point blank range at with max anarchy, whatever was in front of her was going to die really quickly. "So what about my Spinigun?"

The two professors looked at each other uneasily.

"Well, the thing with that weapon is that we aren't used to dealing with a man-portable, multi-barrel, fully-automatic weapon," Port said. "And since it is magazine fed, we didn't want ruin the internals by trying to modify it to accept a belt system, or cause the weapon to lose its balance. In all honesty, we don't know what to do with it."

Gaige sighed; she knew that the Vladof Spinigun, while extremely capable, did have its issues due to its design. If one were careless when working on the internal systems, one could cause the barrels and the chamber to become de-synch. She saw this happen to a bandit who had a Bandit Spingun, and the results were the gun loses his hand.

"I can handle that one on my own," Gaige said. "I've seen the results of someone unfamiliar with the system to lose a hand. And no, it wasn't me; I lost my left arm as after a piece of sheet metal cut into my arm while I was making Deathtrap. I needed to find a way to deploy deathtrap without the use of a 6 foot pool, so I came up with my robotic arm and hey presto; I got a robotic arm and a cool way to deploy Deathtrap."

Port and Oobleck nodded, both men were saddened by the fact they lost a bet between them, Glynda, Ironwood, and Ozpin. Port thought she lost it to a vicious animal attack, Oobleck thought it might've been crushed under debris and required amputation, Glynda thought the girl had a misfire with a weapon, and Ironwood thought Gaige cut her arm off because it looked cool while Ozpin thought it was the result of an accident. Now they would have to argue if they pay Ozpin or Ironwood for the bet.

"I see," Oobleck said, clearing his throat. "Now then, how about we apply the changes to your weapons, and see about finishing up your lessons?"

~_Flashback ends_~

* * *

><p>"All passengers for Flight 17 to Beacon Academy, you may all start boarding," said a voice over the intercom. Gaige smiled. She grabbed her single bag, which contained her spare clothes, her toolbox, and a couple of engineering books, and trudged onto the airship. She was glad that Oobleck and Port had convinced her to allow them to work on her weapons, as she had to pass yesterday's test with Ozpin to make sure she could blend in without raising too many alarms.<p>

Officially, her name would be Gaige Asimov. She is a citizen of Vale, with her losing her family a few years ago due to a Grimm attack in one of the frontier towns. She was entering Beacon based on the face she impressed Port with her skills against the Grimm.

She sighed, as she wasn't going to go talk too much about her past. If she did, she would be forced to remember her failures, all the people that died because she failed to stop Jack soon enough. And she didn't succeed in even that, as Jack was alive and kicking, back on Pandora doing God knows what!

Gaige walked to the back of the airship and set her bag down. She had been informed by Ozpin that the flight would take a couple of hours, as they had a few other air stations they needed to land and pick up new first years. She wisely decided to use this time to do one thing that was a luxury on Pandora; sleep. She closed her eyes, and leaned on her bag, using the little bit of cushioning to get comfortable.

It took a few minutes, but she soon succumbed to the lulls of sleep, the whir of the turbines helping in her efforts to sleep. At first her dreams were just random flashes, thoughts as her brain began to sort through the new information it had taken in the last week.

* * *

><p>"Oh, I can't believe my baby sister is going to Beacon with me!" said Yang, a blonde with lilac eyes, while she was hugging (crushing) her half-sister Ruby. "This is the best day ever!"<p>

"Please stop," Ruby begged, the crisomnette's words being slurred from the lack of air. Yang however relents, taking a few springy steps back.

"But I'm so proud of you!" Yang stated.

Ruby sighed. She knew the only reason she was going to Beacon two years before anyone normally would was because she showed her skills with her weapon Crescent Rose (a scythe/anti-material rifle combo weapon) when Roman Torchwick attempted to rob a store of its Dust. She didn't think it was that impressive, so she was going to put an end to 'proud Yang'.

"It was nothing sis," Ruby said humbly. But Yang wasn't having any of it.

"What do you mean?" She asked. "It was incredible!" Ruby made a mental note that perhaps telling her what happened wasn't the best of ideas. "Everyone at Beacon is going to think you are the bee's knees."

"I don't want to be the bee's knees okay, I don't want to be any kind of knees. I want to be normal girl with normal knees," Ruby said, beginning with a panicked voice and ending on a more tired note.

"What is with you?" Yang asked. "Aren't you excited?"

"Of course I'm excited," Ruby said, trying to explain her situation. "I just got moved ahead 2 years. I don't want anyone to think I'm special or anything." She was feeling bummed; she didn't have any friends that would be attending Beacon, so she was feeling alone. Yang walked towards her side and wrapped her arm around Ruby's neck.

"But you are special," Yang said affectionately. Ruby nodded. There wasn't much on the airship to do, other than watch the news feed (which was currently talking about the robbery attempt) or interacting with people. Ruby was about to pay attention to the news feed when she saw a girl with double orange hair ponytail towards the back, seemingly asleep. When the news feed shifted to an introduction to Beacon by Glynda Goodwitch, Ruby thought it would be a good idea to wake the girl up.

Ruby walked up to the girl, kneeling down to gently shake on the girl's shoulder.

"Hey, wake up," Ruby said in a soft voice. "We're almost at Beacon." The girl's green eyes fluttered open.

"Huh, what?" the girl said. She looked around the place, a bit out of it due to the sleep. "Oh, are we at Beacon?"

"Not yet," Ruby said. At this point Yang came up, interested in who her sister was talking to. "But we are almost there. So my name is Ruby Rose and this here is my half-sister Yang. What's your name?"

"Gaige Asimov," Gaige replied, remembering her cover. Gaige looked at Ruby, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?" Ruby nodded.

"Yeah, but after witnessing how I took care of some thieves, Professor Ozpin came to, I suppose interview me," Ruby said. "And so here I am. How about yourself? I suppose you went to a combat school."

Gaige was thankful for the cover that she and Oobleck created for her. It covered most of the things that one would expect for a background; when and where she was born, her family, her education, her reasons for attending Beacon, and then some.

"No," Gaige replied, shaking her head. "I was wandering a town that had been abandon when the Grimm attacked, and Huntsman Port watched how I dealt with the Beowulf pack. After he interrogated me, Ozpin offered me a place at Beacon."

Gaige was surprised by how relax Ruby and Yang were at the mention of her taking out a Beowulf pack. She been told by Port and Oobleck that encountering a pack by oneself in an urban area was highly dangerous.

"That's cool," Yang said. "So where're you from?"

"I'm actually from a frontier town on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Vale," Gaige said. "My mother and father were engineers, and they helped with the town's mechanical needs." Gaige was glad her parents had jobs that correlated to Remnant; she shuddered to think what would happen if Tiny Tina was on Remnant and was asked the same question. _My daddy is the Pyscho Vault Hunter, and I build bombs bitches! _Yes, that sounded quite a bit like what Tina would say.

"Ah, so why were you wondering a ghost town then?" Yang asked. "If you were living in one frontier town, then why were you exploring another?" Gaige knew this was coming, so it was time to pull out the lie of all times; one that mixed pure bullshit with reality.

"Well, you see, everything was fine until my second year of high school was having its science fair project." Gaige began. She couldn't believe that Oobleck insisted that she incorporate as much of her actual life in her cover; _having the truth in the lies will be easier for you to commit to memory, _was what he said.

"Well, I was working on my project, which was a 'Mechanized Anti-Bully Deterrent, or Project DT for short. Anyway, after this bitch Marci stole my ideas and made a real hack job of trying to get a robot to give to a large company for mass production, it was time for our projects to be graded. All the judges were impressed by my design, which was working as intended. However, Marci decided to have her precious daddy bribe the judges. She got first and I was given third place"

"That bitch!" Yang said, punching her fist into her hand. "Where is she, I would like to give that cheating-"

"Too late for that Yang," Gaige said. "For you see, Marci couldn't have just won the fair; oh no, she had to rub it in my face. She began insulting me, and she then decided to push me. Unfortunately, the night before I was adjusting DT's arms and gave him much more power behind his swing. Now, DT saw Marci pushing me as a violent action, and it attacked Marci, striking her face."

"So what?" Yang asked. "I punched my share of assholes in the face, and nothing bad happened as a result." Gaige pondered if she should inquire about Yang's past at the moment, before shaking herself.

"Does your fist construct razor sharp claws and can apply enough force to either cut or badly damage steel?" Gaige asked. At Yang's silence she continued. "Well, needless to say, as a result of that, I was about to be expelled and imprisoned because Marci's dad had to local police in his pocket. So, my father, being the brilliant man he is, caused a distraction using a lawn mower and plenty of fuel, and I ran away."

She saw the look of conflict on Ruby's face and Yang's disapproving stare. Gaige sighed; no matter how many times she said it was an accident, she knew rational people would think there was something she could've done differently. Her fellow Vault Hunters and the friends she ended up making in Sanctuary would react to it like it was normal, like having her robot go overkill on Marci was a simple and understandable mistake.

"So your robot, due to your tinkering, ended up killing a person?" Yang asked after a moment of silence. Gaige nodded. "Why didn't you have a recall code that could've prevented it?" Gaige had wondered why it took her adventures on Pandora to think of adding that simple code.

"I honestly don't know why I didn't have something like a recall command," Gaige admitted. "I was more focused on getting DT up and running, making sure its features were working to think about safety features other than a basic IFF protocol."

"I can't say I approve of you killing someone, even if it was an accident," Yang started. "But I can't judge, considering I did something equally stupid, hell it probably was more stupid." Before Gaige could ask what Yang had done, Ruby finally spoke up.

"But I assume you had your regrets about what happened to Marci?" Ruby asked. At this Gaige was conflicted. On one hand, had Marci not died, Gaige would probably be on Eden-5, with her mother and father, probably working on some kick-ass project, going to one of the advance engineering schools. But on the other, she wouldn't have met her fellow Vault Hunters, help save (even it is turned out it was only for a moment) Pandora from Handsome Jack, and been able to make a name for herself.

"I guess I do," Gaige conceded. "But hindsight is 20/20; I can't dwell forever on what might have been, so I try to do what I can to help people now." She saw the half-sisters smile a little.

"That's good," Ruby said. They felt the airship slow down, and began rotating. "I guess we are finally arriving at Beacon."

Gaige walked to the window, bag in hand as she gazed upon the place she would be calling home for a while. In front of her stood a massive castle-esque structure in white marble, with an impressive foray, with a long paved path lined with traditional street lights and flags lining it. Gaige could hear Ruby and Yang moving to get off, leaving Gaige alone in her thoughts.

"Welcome to Beacon Gaige," she muttered to herself. "Now let's survive whatever Beacon throws at us, complete our end of the bargain, and find a way home."

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><p><strong>Author's Notes: Got this chapter done (finally), so onto some points of discussion.<strong>

**First, why I didn't have Gaige show Ruby or Yang Deathtrap on the airship is that the airship is quite confined all things considered, and while in show it looks like it has plenty of room, I don't think anyone would be amused by a floating 5-foot tall metal deathmachine being in it. Don't worry, teams RBWY and JNPR will get a glimpse of Deathtrap during initiation, which is close, so please be patient.**

**Second, yeah, Oobleck might not be as hyper-active in this as he is in show, but that is because I didn't show him being super active with his interactions with Gaige. Don't worry, he will be the hyper-active man he is later on.**

**Finally, you guys are probably wondering why I did A/N at the end of each chapter for the first two chapters, as the first three chapters of the story have been posted, on the same day. The reason is this; after some stories of mine that I feel like I lost interest in and couldn't write past the first three chapters, I decided to implement the 3-chapter rule. If I can't write past the first three chapters and still have a good idea on what I want to do, I won't post the story on this site. As a result of this rule, I am going to take down one of my popular stories because after writing the 2****nd**** chapter, I lost my focus on the story and couldn't figure out where to take it.**

**So the A/N that appeared at the end of each chapter will discuss my view on my decisions with the story, and in future chapters I will be responding to reviews. Anyway guys, take care and remember to review, follow, and favorite the story. Panzer4life, out.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Welcome to beacon (Pt 2)**

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><p>Gaige was the last off the airship, and felt a bit of pity for the blonde hair knight-looking kid that was puking his guts out. She knew that motion sickness was a bitch, but damn, this kid was puking worse than she had when she learn what went into Moxxi's pizza. She walked past him, leaving him to his misfortune, determined to find the auditorium where the new hunters were supposed to go.<p>

She walked along the paved path, following a group of newcomers and examined their weapons. She wasn't impressed, as most were melee based combat weapons. Maces, swords, halberds, and even pole staffs were common place on the students. She knew that on Remnant they had combination weapons, but c'mon, where were the tried and tested firearms that offered death from afar?

Gaige became a bit too lost in her thoughts, as she ended up bumping into someone. Gaige fell flat on her ass, causing her to wince in pain as her tailbone had taken the brunt of the fall. The other person fell on their knees, who turned to Gaige.

"Are you alright, are you hurt, did you break anything?" asked the person, who Gaige identified as a white female having orange hair, wearing a white sleeveless shirt and a pink skirt. Gaige was impressed that the girl recovered fast, and could talk fast, but before Gaige could speak, the energetic girl commenced her verbal onslaught.

"No, you're alright," she said after seeing that Gaige in too much pain. "So how are you doing? What's your name, where'd you come from, what's your weapon? I bet you have an awesome chainsaw shotgun, no, a gun that shots swords that explodes! That would be totally badass and awesome, but I wouldn't give up Magnhild, for I would be nothing without my hammer of boom, and my hammer nothing without me!"

"Wow chill out," Gaige said, putting a hand on the enthusiastic girl. "First, the name is Gaige Asimov, I'm fine, and I grew up on the outskirts of the kingdom of Vale. As my weapon, well I have a couple I use, but my most awesome and my baby would be Deathtrap."

The girl helped Gaige up, and began to jump around Gaige like a hyper active child.

"What is Deathtrap?" the girl said. "What does it do? Is it a bear-trap that has a flame grenade that detonates and engulfs Grimm in a fiery explosion? Oh, by the way, my name is Nora, Nora Valkyrie, and I will be the most awesomeist huntress that Beacon has ever seen!"

Gaige was briefly reminded of Tiny Tina in Nora, but there were vast differences. While both were energetic, Tiny Tina was violently eccentric, with an obsession with explosions that rival Mr. Torgue. Nora meanwhile was slightly childish in her demeanor, but was as active as a pyscho after getting high on meth.

"Well Nora, Deathtrap is a combat robot I built," Gaige explained. "It has half an inch of armor, is capable of cutting through brick walls with its blades, and also totes around a laser that can set enemies on fire."

Nora's jaws dropped before she grabbed Gaige in a bear hug that forced all the air out of Gaige's lungs.

"That sounds awesome!" Nora squealed. "Can I see it, can I see Deathtrap?!"

"Not right now," Gaige said. "I have to make a few modifications tonight on him, to make sure he is up and running at peak efficiency, but if you want to see him tonight, I guess it wouldn't do too much harm."

"Yes, that sounds great!" Nora exclaimed. "Will you be my best-buddy; well after Ren, but Ren has always been my bestest best-buddy ever. Oh my gosh, you need to see Ren!"

Before Gaige had a chance to utter anything, Nora grabbed Gaige's hand and ran off at high speed. Gaige felt as though her arm was going to be ripped from its socket, and soon she was at the mercy of becoming motion sickness. _How the hell can Nora run this fast without getting sick herself?_

Before Gaige could lose the contents of her stomach however, she felt Nora twirl her around her, while yelling at someone.

"Hey Ren, best buddy, guess what?! I found someone I want you to meet; her name is Gaige Asimov, and she has a killer robot of awesome!" Gaige felt her hand was released from the iron grip of Nora, and she stumbled, her eyes readjusting to not moving like she was in a washing machine.

"Nora, you do know that if you asked, she probably would've followed you without having you to drag them off, right?" asked a Asian male with black hair that had a pink highlight, in traditional green clothes.

"But Ren, you are so awesome that I couldn't wait for Gaige to meet you!" Nora whined, balling her fist at the hem of her skirt. "So I had to drag her over!" Ren shook his head slowly before turning to Gaige.

"Hello Gaige, it is a pleasure to meet you," Ren said, extending his hand for a shake. Gaige shook it, glad that Ren wasn't as active as Nora.

"Likewise Ren," Gaige replied. She saw that Ren had a pair of pistols that had a long blade that she figured could double as a guard. "So Ren, I see you use dual pistols. Finally, someone with the decency to use a practical weapon."

Ren chuckled, pulling the two weapons from their holsters.

"Well, Storm-Flower is actually a machine pistol, but I can see why you would assume there a pistol," Ren remarked. "They are based on a pair of pistols my grandfather used, but I preferred to have a faster rate of fire over damage per shot. The blades are there so I have something already in my hand when I run low on ammo."

"That makes sense," Gaige said. Ren reminded her in a way like Zero; calm and collected. However Ren was clearly more likeable, and definitely didn't speak in haikus.

"Well I have Magnhild!" Nora interjected. "It is my awesome boom hammer that can fire grenades! I remember one time during training when I put my grenades on bounce instead of impact, it was hilarious! People were running all over, trying to avoid my grenades. Hehe!"

"Right," Gaige said, knowing the chaos a bunch of bouncing grenades could cause. She and Axton were giving the worst torture the other Vault Hunters had imagined; collecting the brown rocks Claptrap wanted. Who needs over two hundred thousand brown rocks?! "So Ren, how long have you and Nora known each other?"

"Since childhood," Ren said. "We always stuck together, mainly because I didn't have many friends and Nora, well Nora can be a bit much at times. So what weapon do you use?"

"She has the robot of Death!" Nora said. "At least, that is what she said." Ren raised an eyebrow.

"Really, you have a robot of death?" Ren asked. Gaige sighed; she might as well show the excited Nora and the calm Ren Deathtrap.

Lifting her left hand, she deployed Deathtrap, glad that while Port and Oobleck had worked on tinkering her weapons, she was allowed to upgrade Deathtrap. She removed that skull that came with her 'With claws' skill, going back to the box head design. She also improved the IFF, fire control, and shielding programs, gave Deathtrap the physical maintenance he needed, and improved the laser's range and damage.

Nora's and Ren's reaction to deathtrap were much like how they acted as Gaige saw. Nora jumped all around Deathtrap, looking over him with the fascination a five year old had when they go to the zoo. She tried to give Deathtrap a high five, but sadly Deathtrap didn't return the gesture. Ren meanwhile looked calmly at Deathtrap, taking in its appearance and various weapons like a man calculating its performance would.

"So what is its designation?" Ren asked. Gaige shrugged.

"I call him Deathtrap, though its official designation would be D374-TP. I made him for a science fair project." Ren nodded.

"Well, do you have any other weapons?" Ren asked. Gaige nodded.

"Yeah, I have a shotgun, revolver, assault rifle, sniper rifle, and a couple of grenades," Gaige said. "I could go more in-depth with the weapons, but I believe we have an introduction we need to get to."

"That we do," Ren said. "Nora, c'mon, we have to get to the auditorium."

"Aye!" Nora replied, snapping a cheery salute, causing Gaige to smile. _Perhaps Beacon won't be so bad. _

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><p>Walking after Ren and Nora into the auditorium, Gaige was surprised by the number of people that were in. There were a couple dozen people in the auditorium. Granted, she knew most young adults wouldn't want to go off and get jobs that could result in death, but given what she knew about military enlistment on Eden-5, she was expecting more people.<p>

She turned her attention back to Ren and Nora, with Nora excitedly recounting stories of their childhood, with Ren making numerous corrections (actually Gaige was certain that if Ren didn't make his adjustments, Nora could've been mistaken for someone living on Pandora).

"And then me and Ren joined up and took down the Great Sinning Mantis, with Ren cutting its head off and me shoving grenades down its gullet!" Nora said, bouncing in place. Ren shook his head.

"Actually, it was just a baby Grim Mantis, I didn't cut its head off, and Nora, you simple blew it up with a smash from your hammer," Ren corrected. "Granted, you left a crater in its wake, but I also fondly remember the talking to you got from your mother."

Gaige saw the bubbly girl almost sag to the ground in depression. She wondered what Nora's mother was like to get the cheerful bubble to be popped.

"Don't remind me," Nora whined. "I still remember all rocks I had to move, by hand, without using Magnhild. Then she made me return the rocks to once they came! Why must you wound me?"

"Well, enough about our stories, what about you Gaige?" Ren asked. "I'm sure you probably have some interesting stories from your times on the frontier."

"Not really," Gaige said, slightly depressed that she was instructed by Oobleck, Ozpin, and even Port not to mention Pandora in any way, shape, or form, if it couldn't be translated to something on Remnant. Thus, as much as she wanted to tell Nora and Ren of the time she, Maya, Axton, and Krieg decided to face down Terramorphus the Invincible, she couldn't.

"What?" Nora asked. "But there are so many Grimm on the frontier and you have Deathtrap, which by the way what are you going to do with him tonight? You should have plenty of tales worthy of being made into a series of one-shot stories."

"Well, sad to say, but most of the time on the frontier for me was spent scavenging for food, water, and shelter," Gaige replied, thoroughly getting annoyed that she could tell Ren or Nora anything about Pandora. She paused; perhaps if she manipulated some details, omitted some facts, she could come up with a decent tale. But before she could proceed with telling a slightly modified tale of dealing with a Rak Hive, she saw Professor Ozpin and Goodwitch come onto the stage. The moment he entered the room became quiet, and Gaige could tell that Ozpin, despite his aged looks, could probably drop kick anyone in this room without letting go of his coffee cup. He approached the microphone.

"I'll keep this brief," Ozpin started, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. "You have traveled today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft, and acquire new skill. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people."

Gaige nodded, remembering why she fought on Pandora. She fought to keep the citizens of Sanctuary safe, to end Handsome Jack's tyranny. She knew the other Vault Hunters had come to Pandora for a challenge, for glory, for the money, but Gaige truly thought she could do some good on Pandora. Why not do some good on the hell that was Pandora if it kept you from getting imprisoned/killed by the corrupt police on Eden-5?

"But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction. You assume that knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge will carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step," Ozpin finished, his speech leaving several of the students scratching the back of their heads in slight confusion. Gaige knew it was better to have people with some doubt leave before they got to in over their head, so perhaps Ozpin was trying to weed out those who couldn't make it leave of their own will before they got hurt themselves.

Glynda Goodwitch then walked up to the speaker. Gaige was disliked Glynda; neither really liked each other, as both were different in their manner of combat. Glynda preferred having control over her battles, while Gaige allowed chaos and destruction to ensue to win her battles. Glynda didn't see the point to having a literal storm of bullets ricocheting around, doing damage to whatever they hit, but to Gaige it was a perfectly sound (and proven) method of battle.

In addition, when Glynda came the day before to unlock Gaige's aura, Glynda was annoyed that Gaige didn't seem to appreciate having her aura unlocked. Gaige hated it when the blonde professor said it was vital for any successful hunter to combat the Grimm; she fought on Pandora, where she faced creatures that while not as fast as the Grimm were certainly as dangerous if not more so. Granted, she liked the idea of aura healing her minor wounds, but after making modifications to her shields (improving their performance against melee combatants), Gaige was expecting to rely on aura to keep her alive; that would be her shield's duty.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight," Glynda instructed the first years. "Tomorrow, your initiation will begin; be ready. You're dismissed."

"He was odd," Nora said finally. "But oh well, we have a bit before we have to sleep, so Gaige, would you like to show me and Ren more of Deathtrap and your other weapons? Oh, what are those on your skirt; they look bulky." Gaige saw Nora pointing at her shield, relic piece, and class mod

"Oh, they are combat tools I use to improve my performance in battle," Gaige said, simplifying it as they walked to the ballroom. "They handle a number of functions, such as providing shielding, improve the handling of my weapons, and improve functions on Deathtrap."

"Okay," Ren said. "But how? I get the shield, it probably uses a kinetic barrier to dampen the incoming impact of objects, and a mobile CPU could improve your robot, but how can anything improve your weapon performance?"

Gaige cursed herself for not remembering that unlike her and the other Vault Hunters, the people of Remnant don't use the Dahl , a program which translate experience earned in battle into manipulative skills. It took her over two hours to explain to Oobleck and Port, finally resorting to shooting her shotgun with and then without Anarchy, so the effect of the program when she translated her experience into her anarchy tree.

"Well, let just say the program has monitored my style of combat and provides buffers to improve it further," Gaige replied. "It isn't complicated, kind of, and that said, you reminded me that I need to install a new module to Deathtrap."

"Oh, what will it do?" Nora asked, jumping in front of Gaige and walking backwards, facing the mechromancer. "Will it add a missile launcher, or maybe a massive railgun?"

"No Nora, it won't add those," Gaige said. "Rather, the module I plan on installing is called ' .exe'. Its purpose will be to convert all of codes I call anarchy stacks into a new code that is called Tyrant. Its purpose will be to increase the damage output of Deathtrap by overclocking his systems, increasing his onboard computer's processing speed of target acquisition, rate of fire, accuracy, and finally cool down of his more powerful hardware."

"Wouldn't that cause damage to his computer in the long run?" Ren asked. "I mean, overclocking tends to cause heating issues, damage to the circuits, and could cause a meltdown."

Gaige shrugged, kind of surprised that Ren knew a thing about computer programming. Overclocking a powerful computer would indeed do the things that Ren said, amongst several more evil things. However, Gaige was confident with her skills, as she had a newly rewritten code for Claptrap's , and she built Deathtrap from the ground up.

"I got the cooling situation under control," Gaige said. "When I activate the tyrant program, my cybernetic arm will open up and the liquid nitrogen pumps will kick in, allowing venting of excess heat and cooling the CPU. Also, my circuit board was rugged enough to handle outdoor conditions, so I don't think a meltdown will occur with the cooling systems I have onboard."

"Alright then, then I hope it works," Ren said. "I hope it doesn't do anything negative to you. I mean, doesn't your arm hurt when you are running Deathtrap?"

"Not really," Gaige said. "I mean, my arm hurt the first week I had it on, but the pain eased away." As Ren shrugged and began talking to Nora, Gaige looked at her left hand. She remembered Jack's enforcer Wilhelm, and how he augmented his body to the point where he was mostly machine and was a walking weapon. She wondered if he choose it himself or if the constant augmentation affected his mind in some way, as any augmentation program relied on an AI connected to the brain to work properly, even her arm.

Shrugging the thought aside, she followed Rena and Nora into the ballroom, hoping to get the tyrant module installed before tomorrow's initiation.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Wow, so many people are following, favoriting, and viewing the story, so thank you guys. I just want to respond to a review I got and then I will be on my way.<strong>

**-Guest: I don't always 'talk' to the readers. And I agree, responding to every review does cause unsightly A/Ns. I am beginning to respond only to reviews that ask a question, but I do acknowledge every review I get. So if you have questions about the story or elements in the story, if you leave a question in the review I will either respond in the A/N if multiple people asked about it, or give a PM to the sender.**

**Alright, that is it, next chapter will be the start before the initiation, so until next time, please follow, favorite, and review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Initiation (Part 1)**

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><p>"No Nora, I don't think that is at all what a sloth sounds like," Gaige face palmed, irritated at Nora's behavior this early in the morning. Gaige wasn't a morning person, and while she liked Nora, her personality in the morning was giving the mechromancer a headache.<p>

"That is why it will be the best signal ever!" Nora yelped excitedly. "If no one knows what it is, then how will they be able to trick us?" Gaige sighed as she approached her locker.

"Look Nora, if you and Ren want to be partnered up together, why not add a tracking system to each other's scroll and find each other that way?" Gaige asked. Nora shook her head while Ren closed his locker, speaking up.

"Before the exam, the professors will confiscate all electronic devices and disable their ability to use maps or tracking systems before returning said devices to their owners," Ren replied. "It's a measure that prevents those with electronic devices to have an unfair advantages or to influence how the teams are set up."

Gaige nodded wearily. While Ren and Nora walked off Gaige turned to her locker, and began by collecting her weapons. They had been stored there after the professors collected everyone's weapons and assigned them their locker numbers. The reason given was so that the professors could inspect the weapons and look for any method of smuggling in any illegal substances, which Gaige could understand. But she figured the real reason was so that the ballroom didn';t turn into a blood bath, and after hearing some bitch in white (apparently named Weiss) rip into Ruby and Yang, it was a good call.

She grabbed her trusty revolver, which after the modifications, was renamed _Rex Tremendae_, with the hilarious 'Basically this is a fucking huge ass gun' inscription in her weapon's echo slot. Next came her Coach Gun (now called _Taylor's Coach Gun_ and bearing the inscription 'double shot your guns and give them hell'.) She packed her Spin-gun, before finally packing her modified Surgical Terror (hence forth known as _Predator's Terror _and inscribed with 'You are one ugly mother fucker). She also had managed to create at least 5 universal grenades, so she would be able to deal with armored threats without relying on her sniper rifle.

Gaige closed her locker, and began chuckling. With her firepower and Deathtrap, Gaige felt invigorated and ready to take on whatever the initiation had to offer. But a part of her was bummed out, mainly that she wasn't in the same 'cycle' as either Ren, Nora, Ruby, or Yang. She was in the cycle after them, so while she had a little bit of time to relax before her initiation, she also wouldn't have anyone she would know at least knew for more than a moment's glance.

Gaige began walking out of the locker room when she saw a weather looking young man with black hair and a pencil mustache cursing to himself.

"Fucking piece of shite," he mutter to himself. "Give me Liberty or I will fucking rip you apart you stupid metal coffin!" Gaige looked from behind the man and saw him struggling to remove his long barreled lever action rifle from his locker. Gaige could see that the rifle butt was wedge behind one of the hinges of the door.

"Um, I could help," Gaige said. The young man turned around and looked at Gaige for a moment before shrugging.

"Be my guest," he replied. "Whoever shoved my rifle in this locker had better be watching their ass, for I swear I will kick them so hard in the balls…" Gaige tuned the man's growingly violent threat as she activated her digi-struct claws. While she normally would deploy them in the heat of battle, the blades also acted like the ultimate in getting rid of anything small and metal, mostly locks. But right now, she simply swung her claws downward with a little force, cutting the hinge off. The rifle sagged to the ground, and the man grabbed it, caressing it like a baby.

"Ah, you are freed my rifle, I thank you very much!" the young man said. "I'd be screwed without my rifle; I may have a knife, but I much prefer to keep my enemies as far away from me as possible. The name's Nash Quigley, outdoor enthusiast and soon hunter of Grimm." He offered his hand to Gaige, which she shook.

"Well nice meeting you Nash, and my name is Gaige Asimov, engineer with a kickass robot," Gaige greeted. "So what's up?" Nash smiled.

"Well Gaige, you remind me a lot of my friend," Nash said. "He too is an engineer, though he mostly deals with heavy weapons and not something as intricate as say a robot. But enough about him, I am doing splendid, now that I have Liberty back." Gaige looked at the rifle.

"Liberty?" She asked. "Err, is that the name of your rifle?" Nash nodded.

"That it is," he said, beaming at it proudly. "It was my grandfather, who hunted many Grimm in my native kingdom of Vacou. Before he passed, he taught me personally how to become an incredible marksman and how to survive off the land, and when I got accepted into Beacon, my father handed me down Liberty, seeing as how he didn't use it; my father is more of a fishing man himself."

"That is cool to hear," Gaige replied. "So what round does liberty use?"

"It uses .45-70 government catridge," Nash supplied. "It has a capacity of seven rounds, and I have hit the targets the size of golf balls from six hundred yards with the iron sights. So what weapon do you use; I saw that claw that you used to cut the hinge off with, which by the way where is it?"

"It was a digitally constructed claw, so it disappears when no longer needed. Also, I have a custom revolver, shotgun, sniper rifle, and assault rifle, along with my robot Deathtrap," Gaige replied. Nash raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure you aren't compensating for something?" Nash asked, looking at Gaige's chest. Granted, Gaige wasn't the most well endowed woman, but she most certainly wasn't flat.

"Fucking douche bag!" Gaige scoffed, whacking Nash behind the head. "No I'm not compensating, it just where I came from, you needed all the firepower you could get to survive." Nash laughed while rubbing his forehead.

"I kid, I kid," he chuckled. "But seriously, wouldn't all of that gear weigh you down?"

"I got my ways of dealing with the weight," Gaige said loftily. "Anyway, are you in the second initiation cycle?" Nash nodded.

"Yeah, too bad we don't get to watch what the first cycle does," Nash said. "How about we get to know each other as we walk down to our initiation?"

"Sounds good to me," Gaige answered. She followed Nash down to the auditorium, where the others who were waiting for their cycle to begin were mulling about. They talked about their weapons, with Nash scoffing at Gaige's shotgun ('Who the hell needs to fire 130 pellets in one go?'), and Gaige enjoyed Nash's tales of his hunting trips with his late grandfather, and got the impression that Nash was very much like a younger Sir Hammerlock.

"And then we had to run from our campsite as my grandfather hadleft the gasoline too close to the fire, and everything was on fire!" Nash said, finishing a story about his last hunting trip with his grandfather. "I swear, the look on my mother's face when she saw the two of us, covered in soot, it was priceless!"

Gaige laughed, being reminded of a time when her and Tiny Tina were crafting a big ass bomb, only Tina mixed up her gunpowder with coal dust. Needless to say Gaige and Tiny Tina's clothes were ruined by the coal dust when the first charge prematurely exploded. But before Gaige could say a word, Glynda's voice came over the intercom.

"The first round of the initiation is complete, will all students in the second cycle please report to the cliff." Nash looked over at Gaige.

"Well, I guess this is it," Nash states, rubbing his mustache apprehensible. "Good luck to you Gaige; perhaps we will be on a team together." Gaige nods.

"Good luck to you to Nash," Gaige said, and begins walking to the cliff with the other students of the second initiation cycle.

* * *

><p>"Fuck my life!" Gaige yelled as she was launched into the air, off the cliff of Beacon, where her landing was the thick and Grimm infested Emerald Forest. She hadn't liked what she knew of this initiation from Ozpin's and Glynda's briefing. Not only were they heading into a Grimm infested forest in search of a relic, but also the very first person she laid eyes on would be her teammate for the next four years. Which would become hell on earth for her if she got a self-righteous bitch or an arrogant ass-wipe as a teammate.<p>

As she neared the ground, Gaige decided not to test if her kinetic absorbers that when in her shoes were working and instead deployed Deathtrap.

"Deathtrap, get us to the ground and secure the immediate area!" Gaige commanded. Deathtrap quickly scooped Gaige into his arm and descended into the thick forest. As they landed, Deathtrap released Gaige from his grip and while he scanned around the nearby area, Gaige equipped her _Rex Tremendae_.

"You see anything buddy?" Gaige asked Deathtrap. Deathtrap shook his module head, letting Gaige sigh. She checked her stats quickly on her Echo device, forever thankful that Port had simply disabled her map. She frowned at the zero anarchy stacks she had.

"Alright buddy, time to go back," Gaige said, recalling Deathtrap. "I have to keep you for when shit hits the fan, which isn't now. Now, first thing first, find a partner and then retrieve the relic."

Gaige started running through the woods, heading straight forward, with no obvious plan or strategy, as she didn't know where anyone else would be nor were the relics were. After ten minutes of running, Gaige began to doubt that there was any Grimm in these woods. _Perhaps the first round of the initiation swept through the woods and either killed or scared off the Grimm, _Gaige pondered when she heard an ominous clicking behind her.

She turned around to see something she never would've imagined. A horde of small dog-sized black ants with white armored plates on the top were behind her, clicking their pincers. Gaige swore silently, wondering why she jinxed herself. Gaige took aim with her revolver and fired into the eye orbs of the closest ant, watching as the more powerful round killed the ant in one shot.

"That wasn't so bad," Gaige said, until she saw that the horde of ants began charging at her, with more joining their ranks, becoming a black flood of clicking ants. Gaige decided to not pause and began shooting at ants, while moving away from the horde. She began to panic as for every ant she killed, another two or three would join the horde.

"Fuck it," Gaige muttered. "Deathtrap, a little help please!" Deathtrap came out, and began assessing the horde in front of him and Gaige. He decided that engaging in close quarters wasn't an option due to the sheer numbers, and began to employ his devastating laser system. Starting at one end of the horde, Deathtrap swept his laser eye crossing the front ranks of the horde, cutting through the armor like a knife through butter.

"Good one buddy!" Gaige complimented Deathtrap as she readied one of her grenades. "Keep them from flanking us while I take out the ones in the middle of the horde!" Deathtrap nodded, so Gaige threw her grenades, one by one, into the horde of ant Grimm. The grenades split as they impacted the ants, releasing the smaller grenades, causing a cloud of acid to coat the ant horde. The acid ate through the ant Grimm's armor, and many fell to Gaige's grenade.

However, not even the literal bombardment from her grenades, Deathtrap's continuous laser strikes, and Gaige's revolver skills were enough to stop the horde. The horde continued to come at Gaige, mindless in their desire to kill Gaige. Gaige grew annoyed that the horde wasn't thinning out any time soon. The Grimm ants were as tough to kill as say Spiderants, but they certainly had a numbers advantage and could probably pin her down and rip her apart limb from limb.

"Um Deathtrap, recall!" Gaige ordered. "We are getting the fuck out of here!" Deathtrap quickly digi-deconstructed, and Gaige immediately began running from the horde. Soon she could hear the horde of ants closing the distance. Despite their size and armor, the ants move with efficiency and speed. Gaige turned her head around, and despaired that the ants not only had the coordination to move in file, but that they could move on top of one another, and the horde became a black and white wave that threatened to come down on her.

"Keep running, I'll cover ya!" yelled a young man's voice. Gaige saw a brown hair and tall young man with a massive cannon propped on his shoulder. Gaige quickly sprinted and watched as the man deployed a rather bulky turret. It had two cannons that were side by side, and was covered in thick armor plating. It reminded Gaige of an old battleship turret on a tripod.

"Here comes the rain of death!" the young man announced, and he began firing at the wave of Grimm ants with his cannon and turret. Gaige felt the shockwaves the shells the young man was firing as they tore through the waves in a series of explosions that would impress Mr. Torgue. When she got to the young man, she redeployed Deathtrap, and she pulled out _Taylor's Coach-Gun_, unloading on the wave with her increasing anarchy.

The two and their mechanical constructs began unleashing hell on the wave of ants. The young man's cannon was aimed at the bottom ants, and thus sought to topple the formation, while his turrets unleashed a barrage of high explosive incedairy shells upon the collapsed formation. Gaige meanwhile fired volley after volley of her shotgun on the new setting, finding the recoil to be manageable, but definitely in need of improvement. And finally, Deathtrap clawed at any ants that made it past the other's fire, ripping the ants to shreds in spite of their armor.

The grimm ants, either due to fear of the duo and their mechanical death machines or realization they could couldn't keep advancing, began to fall back. Gaige chuckled at the destruction the two unleashed.

"Oh man, that was awesome!" Gaige said. She high fived Deathtrap, and then turned to the young man who had pressed a button that collapsed his turret into a more manageable cube.

"Thank you for covering me," Gaige said. "Sooo, do you have a partner? The name's Gaige Asimov by the way." The young man laughed, his voice on little gruff as though he had burned his throat.

"Not before you came Gaige," the young man said. "But seeing as we are now talking, I suppose this makes us partners, now don't it? My name is Robert Moran." They shook hands.

"Well, it is nice to meet you Robert," Gaige said. "So listen, do you know where the relics are?" Robert shrugged.

"Not really," Robert replied, hefting his turret onto his back, where it connected to a series of hooks. "I was actually just getting out of the tree that I landed in when you came with that wave of Iron Pincers hot on your heels. I suggest however we not head where you came from; I rather not take chances and face an Iron Empress."

Gaige shuddered at the idea of an even larger version of those ants and nodded.

"Very well Robert, lets head North then," Gaige suggested as she switched out her coach-gun in favor of her revolver. Robert nodded and the two set off, unaware of how the others were faring.

* * *

><p>Ozpin watched from his scroll as Gaige and Robert set off, making them a pair. He frowned; 'G' and 'R', while they had plenty of words that start with them, were often times a bitch to make into a four letter word. The only thing worse would be getting a pair whose names started with 'X' and 'Z'.<p>

He however was intrigued that the two had managed to work very well together despite not knowing each other previously. It was in stark contrast to Ruby and Weiss, who were polar opposites in terms of attitude. Their efforts in driving off an Iron Pincer wave were commendable, but it had been the coordination between them and their constructs that made them effective. Without their constructs, Ozpin doubted if Gaige and Robert could've driven off the Iron Pincers themselves.

"Ozpin," came the voice of Glynda. "I thought I should let you know that the first wave of initiates are back in the auditorium."

"Thank you Glynda," Ozpin said calmly. "I will have you know that Ms. Asimov has paired up with Mr. Moran." Glynda raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't Mr. Moran the son of the CEO of a small ship building firm?" Glynda asked. When Ozpin nodded Glynda smiled. "Well, the two are both engineers in their own right. I was a bit surprised that Mr. Moran didn't take a job in the family company; he certainly has the skills needed to build high-class vessels."

"I'm sure that his talents won't go to waste," Ozpin said. "Not all ships are built for peace, and his turret looks like he built it off of his father's line of escort cruisers." Glynda nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, we should see if anyone has paired off," Glynda said. She looked at a series of cameras, before resisting the urge to facepalm. "Ozpin, please tell me my eyes are deceiving me."

"What about?" Ozpin asked. He walked up behind Glynda before looking down at Glynda. "Oh dear, that should certainly make an interesting, if not contrasting pairing." Ozpin downed his coffee before tracking the would-be pair's progress. He certainly didn't want to hear shit if things went wrong with this pair.

* * *

><p>Nash Quigley was cursing up a storm as he frantically reloaded <em>Liberty<em>.

"Come the fuck on!" Nash swore. "What the hell did I do to piss you guys off?! Damn it, stay back!"

Nash was currently engaged with a pack of ten Beowolves, with the Alpha charging at him. Nash cocked his rifle and took aim, shooting the alpha in the shoulder. The Alpha shrugged the round off, before trying to charge again. Nash this time placed a round in the Alpha's eyes, blinding it. The Alpha howled in pain, and soon the rest of the pack charged at Nash blindly.

Nash jumped out of the way from a slash from a Beowulf, while at the same time shoving _Liberty_'s barrel to the bottom of another Beowulf's skull, squeezing the trigger to end its life.

"Give me a fucking break you damn tossers!" Nash growled. However, before he could reply, or for the Beowolves could continue their attack, a jet of flame erupted in front of Nash, shielding him for a moment from the Beowolves.

Nash turned his attention to where the flames originated, and saw a person standing with a flamethrower strapped to their back. Why anyone would wield a flamethrower when anyone weapon could be infused or fire red dust was beyond his understanding, but the person was rather intimidating to say the least. They were wearing a black flame-proof suit under a suit of black steel plate armor, and wearing a steel black gas mask that covered the person's face, making the person look like a black knight.

But it was the flamethrower that was the most intimidating feature on the person. It had two fuel lines leading up to the gun, which the person held from the hip and had a nozzle to focus the flames even tighter. But around the nozzle were a pair of plates that shielded the user from any back blast of flames, which were adorned with a sharkface paint job.

"You beast thinking its fine to kill my friend there?" asked a feminine voice; one that Nash would've sworn belonged to an angel that lulled to children. Not one that should grace a black plate knight wielding a weapon born straight from hell.

The Beowolves growled, and shifted their attention to the new threat. Beowolves knew to fear fire, so someone wielding flames had to go down, and fast. The entire pack circled her, and Nash was about to raise his weapon to tackle the pack, when the Alpha growled at him.

"Well then, I guess you got to go first," Nash muttered to himself, as he began to fire upon the Alpha. He aimed for the Alpha's other eye, hoping to blind the beast and force it back, but the Alpha moved faster than he expected. It was in front of him, and it swiped away his rifle and kicked Nash into the ground.

"This isn't good," Nash snarled, and he pulled out his ka-bar, hoping to get in a few lucky blows. The Alpha stood tall above him, and tried to slash at Nash's head, but Nash was quick enough to evade the blows by side stepping and using his knife to parry the slashes. The Alpha soon became enraged, and began to attack with more aggression and strength. Nash struggled, and he realized that the Alpha was pushing him further and further away from the black knight and his rifle.

"You thought you could outsmart me?!" Nash yelled at the Alpha, "Well, fuck you!" Nash decided that neither retreat nor staying on the defense were viable, and thus he did the only thing he could do; get close in to the Grimm and begin stabbing the ever living shit out of the Alpha.

The Alpha not used to a young hunter being so daring, was taken off guard by Nash's action and couldn't react in time to the stabbing of a knife in its chest. It let out a pained howl and quickly swiped away Nash in a direction, which was in the direction of the young hunter's primary weapon. The Alpha was about to charge when it realized a critical bit of information; its pack had fallen.

While Nash and the Alpha had been busy fighting one another, the black knight smiled under her gas mask. She gripped her flamethrower, _The Cleansing Flame,_ tightly and aimed it at the Beowolves in front of her.

"It is time the era of your blight came to an end!" she announced, before pulling the trigger for her standard fuel. A jet of flames poured out of the nozzle, engulfing the first Beowulf in flames, and soon it began to writher in pain before it succumbed to its fate. The others, seeing their pack mate dying a painful death, charged at the black knight, expecting an easy fight once they got too close for her to use that dreaded flamethrower.

However, as they charged, the knight quickly spun in place, lighting the area around her in the hellish flames. Some of the pack were caught in the inferno, and soon the howls of the dying Beowolves echoed through the forest. However, most of the pack managed to get inside the flames and were about to strike at the knight. The first Beowulf to reach the knight was the most likely contender to making a pack of its own, swung its arm at the knight's head, only to feel cold steel cut deep in its chest. It slumped over, not seeing the sabre that ended its life.

The knight set down her flamethrower and began hacking away at the young Beowolves, he eyes glistening with pride as she dispatched each Beowulf in quick succession, cutting off offending limbs that threaten to maul her and ending the Beowulf's life with either a clean decapitation or a thrust to the chest. The way she moved was like a dance of death, her strikes true and precise, her foot work graceful, only to end when she thrust her sabre into the last young Beowulf's heart.

At this moment, the knight turned her attention to Nash and the Alpha, sizing up her new enemy, while the Alpha took in the situation. The knight was certain that if her and Nash teamed up, they could take care of the Alpha easily, as she had her flamethrower and sabre while Nash had his rifle and knife, weapons that exceeded the range of the Alpha's combat range. The Alpha meanwhile knew that without its pack to distract the young hunter and the black knight, he would stand no chance if the two teamed up. Therefore, in its and the Grimm's best interest, he turned around and quit the field, burning the image of those two into its mind; he would extract his vengeance at a later date, with a more worthy pack to back him up.

Nash sighed as he watched the injured Alpha retreat into the woods; he was glad it was over. He turned his attention to the knight, who was picking up her flamethrower.

"Hello ma'am," Nash said politely. "My name is Nash Quigley; I assume we are partners now, so can I have you name?" The knight nodded.

"The name is Erica Sherman," the knight, now known as Erica, stated. "It is nice to meet someone who isn't easily intimidated by the Grimm." Nash chuckled lightly, more out of a need to do something other than be quiet.

"Well, my grandfather taught me what I know about the Grimm, and he was a hunter in Vacou," Nash replied calmly. "Anyway, let's go find this relic we're to collect so we can get out of here." Erica nodded in confirmation, and the two set off.

* * *

><p>Gaige and Robert walked to the top of a hill, overlooking a clearing that had the ruins of a temple with a couple of pedestals in the middle.<p>

"Well, this is it," Robert said, rubbing his chin in thought. "It kind of is….. aww shit, what's the word I am looking for?"

"Anti-climatic?" Gaige offered as the two strolled to the pedestals. She looked at the supposed 'relics'; they were large chess pieces. She frowned; she nearly got ripped apart by what equated to giant ants to collect a chess piece?

"This is rather lame for a relic," Gaige said, looking at the two remaining relics, two black rooks. "I mean, I was thinking maybe it was a valuable stone, or maybe something more awe-inspiring, but not _chess pieces_."

"I agree," Robert said. "So, we got our piece, how about…." He didn't get time to finish as another pair came down the hill towards the temple.

"Gaige, Robert, is that you there?" asked Nash as he sprinted towards them. "Oh, am I glad you two guys are okay!" Gaige saw both Robert and Nash embrace one another in a manly brohug.

"So I take it you two know each other?" Gaige asked. Nash nodded.

"Yeah, me and Robert attended the same combat school before we got accepted to Beacon," Nash replied. "He however focused on engineering and training with his _Annihilator_ cannon and making his _Devastator_ turret while I focused on marksmanship and Grimm studies."

Gaige turned her attention to the black knight that was wielding a flamethrower. She instantly knew the person inside was a female as the chest area had more space to accommodate her breast than would typical for a male set of armor.

"So who are you?" Gaige said, extending her right hand as she holstered her revolver.

"Erica Sherman," Erica said, introducing herself. "Trained by my parents in combat and by my uncle in how to fight Grimm. So Gaige was it, where did you come from?"

"I lived on the outskirts of the kingdom of Vale before being offered a place at Beacon," Gaige summarized quickly. "However, I think since we have yet to collect our relics, we better get them and get back to the cliff to end our initiation." The others nodded, and they quickly grabbed the pieces, with Erica shaking her head at the chess pieces.

"Me and Nash had to deal with a pack of Beowolves just to collect a chess piece?" She asked rhetorically. "This is a pretty big let down." Before anyone could respond, a loud beeping was heard. Everyone looked at one another, before padding themselves down.

"Not mine," Erica said, checking her scroll.

"Not mine either," Nash said. "Robert, it that your scroll?"

"Nope, I don't bring my scroll out intot he field," he said, earning an annoyed look by his friend and Erica. "What, I don't want to lose my scroll; my father would kill me if I lost it." The three turned to Gaige, who looked at her Echo device curiously.

"Who the hell would be calling me on my Echo?" Gaige asked herself. Erica shrugged.

"Well, we aren't going to find out if you don't answer," Erica replied. She pushed the answer button on Gaige's Echo device, which was set to speaker mode as Gaige didn't have the ear piece for her Echo device anymore. What came next made the four young hunters snap to attention.

"Why hello bitch," came the arrogant voice of Handsome Jack. "Guess what time it is?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: Oh noes, what does Handsome Jack have planned for Gaige and her friends? Well, it will be entertaining; after all, when does RWBY and Borderlands cease to impress us?<strong>

**Anyway, to answer a review I got from 'drmonicblood', here we go. No, the Dahl experience isn't strictly cannon. However, the Echo communication device is made by Dahl, and since you use your echo to access you map, you inventory, and even your level-up sheet, I figure I could get away with it. It adds a bit of flavor to the echo device, and I can use it to great effect in this story, so no, it isn't cannon per say, but it is making an element of the game plausible and relatable. **

**Anyway, until we see what Jack has planned in the next chapter, please follow, favorite, and review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Initiation (Part 2)**

* * *

><p>"Why hello bitch, guess what time it is?" came Handsome Jack's voice over the Echo. While Erica, Robert, and Nash were confused at the man's greeting, Gaige felt a pang of terror. Why or better yet how, was Handsome communicating to Gaige? However, she knew this asshole, so he wasn't going to shut up unless he got what he came for. But before she could respond, Robert spoke up.<p>

"Who are you to call Gaige a bitch sir?" Robert asked in a manner that Gaige never seen anyone address Handsome Jack. Groveling, yes, insulting, more times than she could count, hell she even heard that someone tried to kill Handsome Jack with a spoon, but never had she heard nor seen anyone address Jack in a calm and respectable manner, and apparently neither had Jack.

. "Well, who is this classy mother fucker, trying to defend the bitch that helped kill my daughter honor?" Jack asked. He seemed to pause while everyone turned their attention to Gaige. "Wait, I know there is only one Echo device, so how…" Jack then let out a laughing chuckle. "Oh god, the orange haired bitch has her Echo set to speaker, now doesn't she? Oh hell, am I going to have soooo much fun with this."

While Nash and Erica were glaring at Gaige (after all, they heard her be suggested in the murder of some man's daughter), while Robert decided to answer Jack's question.

"The name is Robert Moran," he said while keeping his face and voice calm. "Now, if you would…" He was cut off by Jack.

"Listen pal, I don't really care enough to listen to whatever semi-noble idea you got, so shut the fuck up for a moment while I talk to Gaige, bitch on my to-die list, kay?" Gaige began grinding her teeth in frustration; she really didn't want to have inform anyone other than Ozpin about what she had to do to take down Jack.

"What do you want you fucking monster?!" Gaige yelled into her echo device. "How the hell did you find this signal?"

"Ah, ah, ah, you not the one to be asking questions," Jack taunted. "But since you haven't answered, I am going to ask again; guess what time it is?" Gaige fumed, she wanted to find the bastard who made so many people's lives hellish.

"I don't know, time you went and gone fuck yourself?" Gaige said. Jack was silent for a moment, before he sighed.

"You know, I was hoping for a semi-civil conversation, but you bandit scum can't just talk, now can you?" he asked rhetorically. "But you know what, I'll give you the answer; it is time you died, as I can't have you mucking about my plans, like you did before. It's a win-win-win situation for me; you die, I get revenge for my daughter, and I get to go on with my plans without any unnecessary interruptions."

"But if you're wondering how I know where you are, let's just say the cameras in the Emerald Forest aren't that secure. I can see you and your three pals, which I doubt they will remain your pals as they seem like normal civilized people and would hate a child murderer, standing in front of the temple. So, in a few minutes, a little surprise will come and kill your ass Gaige."

"But I am a fair man, and will allow those around you exactly one chance to leave now. Now a warning to your three; while I am fair, I never forget, I never forgive, and I won't hold back should you help Gaige survive what I have coming to kill her. So leave her to die, and I promise, I won't come after you."

Soon the connection was lost, and the three young hunters turned to Gaige. They seemed to be debating whether to accept Jack's words at face value or inquire to see if Gaige actually committed the acts. Robert looked conflicted, as Gaige was his partner, but he wouldn't work with a child killer. Nash wondered how someone like Gaige could kill a child, seeing as she was just becoming an adult.

But Erica walked up to Gaige, and stared her right in the eyes, their faces nearly touching. She saw in Gaige's eyes something she seen her father had once, the same look in his eyes when he was forced to kill his own brother to keep his wife safe.

"Did you kill Jack's daughter?" Erica asked simply. Gaige sighed; she would have to face judgment.

"Yes," Gaige said quietly, her head hung down, staring at the ground in shame. She never had wanted to kill Angel; if anything, she wanted to find some method to save Angel and stop Jack from charging the Vault Key.

"Why then?" Erica asked, her voice commanding an answer.

"Because there was no other choice in the matter," Gaige replied. "Because it was merciful, because it was convenient, I don't fucking know alright?! I can't even begin to explain the situation let led up to her death, but it was one death that I will never forgive myself for." Her throat constricted as the memories of Angel lying on the floor of her chamber, dying due to the eridium withdrawal Jack forced upon his own flesh and blood.

"How could murdering a child be merciful?!" Nash yelled. "You could've done something…" With Nash's outburst, Gaige snapped. She marched into Nash's face.

"Did you know what Jack, her supposed father, did to her?!" Gaige roared, lifting him up by his collar. "He forced her into a chamber, isolated for years, pumping her full of chemicals so he could benefit from the results! Do you know what her final words were; they were 'You're an asshole dad'. Not 'I love you', not 'I forgive you', no, they were literally 'You're an asshole dad'."

Gaige then dropped Nash from her grip, her head swarming with regret, rage, sorrow, and a plethora of other emotions. She turned back to Erica.

"If you wish to leave me to whatever fate Jack has in store, then leave now," Gaige said. "Jack wasn't lying; he will not forgive nor forget. He would burn everything you hold precious for crossing him, and he didn't show mercy to even his daughter. So either leave or brace yourselves, for whatever Jack has in store it won't be pretty, it's going to be a bitch to take down, and odds are, you're going to be hurting."

She saw Robert look at Nash and Erica, before walking to Gaige.

"Fuck it," he said. "I rather get an explanation about why you killed someone if you seemed genuinely disgusted with what you did then leave you for dead and question my actions as a living person."

"I can see you didn't kill Jack's daughter because it brought some perverse pleasure for you," Erica said. She walked beside Gaige. "So I'm staying to help out. Nash, are you staying or leaving?" At this point the Vacou native let out a growl of frustration.

"God help you if I regret helping you out Gaige," Nash stated. "If I don't like the reason you killed Jack's daughter, I will personally be the first to kick your ass into the closest jail cell."

"Fine by me," Gaige said as Nash cocked _Liberty_. She saw Robert loading his _Anihalator_, while Erica checked the lines on _The Cleansing Flames_. She personally made sure _Rex Tremendae_ was loaded, and she checked her anarchy stacks; they were sitting at two hundred stacks. Her fight against the iron Pincers did wonders racking up the stacks; perhaps she will test the Tyrant program with whatever Jack was sending her way.

At first, all they could hear was the falling of trees. Gaige began thinking to everything either strong enough or big enough to topple trees. _Superbadass loaders maybe, Wilhelm certainly, but would he risk a valuable lieutenant again? What else, maybe some constructors…. _

"Do any of you smell that?" Nash asked, wrinkling his nose. Gaige and Robert also wrinkled theirs, and Gaige wondered what thing smelled like it came from the depths of a landfill. She hadn't met anything on Pandora that smelled this bad, though she did recall a battle that Lilith, Brick, Mordecai, and Roland had once… She then realized what could be large enough to knock trees over and smell like the worst thing imaginable.

"Ah shit," Gaige said. "We better run the fuck away NOW!" Nash turned to her, disbelief in his eyes.

"What could be so bad that we would-"

He was suddenly cut off by a massive bellow as something that only Gaige would recognize, as she knew it came only from Pandora. A massive being that was built similar to an elephant but was nearly three times as large charged at them. Its face had four opal eyes; its mouth looked like a vagina, and it had a horn like tip where its nose should've been. It had patchy fur, and its back was lined with several holes, that beast with leathery wings with snake like bodies flew out of. It reared on its hind legs, before smashing into the ground, sending out a shockwave that through the group several yards backwards.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?!" Nash yelled as he got a good look at the beast. "AND WHAT ARE THOSE; FLYING SNAKES?!"

"It is a Rakk Hive!" Gaige yelled. "Jesus Christ, how the hell did Jack get one here?!" Her echo then came back on, with Jack clapping.

"Well, you three were certainly stupid dumbasses that I won't regret killing," Jack said. "This, my good friends, is a Rakk hive, one of the nastiest living creatures anyone could ever encounter! I know that it can be killed, but still, your friends Gaige required a shit ton of munitions, something that I know you four don't have. Good luck dying!"

Gaige and the others began to get up, with the Rakk Hive beginning to charge at them, with the Rakks in the air beginning to fly towards them. Gaige made out that besides the usual Rakk, there were three flaming Rakks and one caustic Rakk. Gaige knew that unless the Rak Hive died, more and more Rakk would come out to fight. And she didn't know how the Grimm would react to this monstrous creature rampaging through the woods. She needed a plan of action, to begin taking this beast down.

"Nash, take out the Rakks!" Gaige ordered. "Robert and Erica, keep your distance and lay into the Rakk Hive! I am going to try and get behind the Rakk Hive and harass it, to keep its attention away from you!"

"Are you INSANE?!" Robert yelled. "One stomp from that monster is all it is going to take to kill you!" Gaige chuckled as she deployed Deathtrap.

"I know that," Gaige said. "However, this isn't my first rodeo. Deathtrap, help Nash with the Rakks, okay?" Deathtrap nodded, though his programming wanted to support Gaige rather than an unknown person. He floated over to Nash, before laying into the Rakk formation with his lighting strikes.

As Gaige began to run to get behind the Hive, Robert deployed his turret and had it track the laser sight on his _Annihilator_ cannon. It was a feature he built in just in case he had to deal with something extremely sturdy and didn't want his _Devastator_ turret aiming at something else.

He took aim at the Rakk Hive's legs, thinking the fight would become easier if he immobilized the beast. When the front leg landed on the ground, Robert began squeezing shells out of the cannon. The shells for his cannon and turret were 40mm HESH, so he was certain that a barrage would cripple the beast. But after emptying his magazine in his cannon and while his cannon was cooling down, he saw that the Rakk Hive kept on approaching, as though it was nothing.

"Gaige, what the fuck is this thing made out of?!" Robert yelled. Gaige was now parallel to the Hive, and was peppering it with Rex Tremendae in the hind legs, hoping to draw its attention away.

"Its skin is very strong as it lives in the ground for most of the year!" Gaige replied. She knew that when Rakk Hives hibernated, they used their thick skin to protect them from the blasted beasts known as Threshers. "Aim for the head and eyes when you get a chance!"

Meanwhile, Nash was having a field day trying to knock the Rakks out of the sky. He was aiming, shooting, and cocking Liberty at an impressive rate, aiming for the weaker Rakks. Erica was also helping him, as she could get close enough with her flamethrower without risking her life.

"Got damn, do these fucking things ever quit?!" Erica yelled, as she let loose a torrent of flames. At this point, the caustic Rakk dived at Erica, before spraying the black knight with a stream of highly corrosive stomach acid. Erica heard her armor sizzling, and she looked over to Nash.

"Nash, kill that green one!" she yelled. "I'll keep the little ones preoccupied." Nash nodded, and loaded his hand load 45-70 rounds with semiwadcutter heads. These would pack more punch that his traditional rounds while being rarer and thus had to be hand loaded, but he didn't care; he needed to drop the green fucker and quick.

He aimed _Liberty_ for the head, and activated his semblance. Everything seemed to slow down, and he took his time aiming the shot. He only had a few seconds, but that was all it took for him to compensate for the Caustic Rakk's flight path and his bullet travel time. He squeezed the trigger, and watched as the bullet smash the head of the Rakk, sending it tumbling to the ground.

"That's the green one for ya!" Nash said before a stream of flames came from the three flaming Rakks above him, forcing him to dive out of the way. "Shit, what is it with these things?! I don't know of any creature able to breathe fire!"

"Let me take care of the fire ones!" Erica said, brandishing her sabre. "You continue with the little flying fuckers. Robert, how is that Hive coming?" She saw Robert reloading his cannon again.

"The fucking thing won't come down, and Gaige is having her hands full trying to keep its attention away from us," Robert informed Erica. In truth, Robert couldn't see his cannon nor his turret doing anything but provide a mild irritant for the large beast. And Gaige was having one hell of a fight.

Gaige was blasting at the Rakk Hive with _Rex Tremendae_, doing a fair bit of damage due to her now having the vagina face to shove rounds down. Her Anarchy stacks however was causing her rounds to go wide, and soon she would have to activate the Tyrant code soon, in the hope of having Deathtrap compensate with his damage for her inaccuracy.

She switched to her _Predator's Terror_, and fired round after round of acidic rounds into the hive's eyes, hoping to blind the blasted beast. She kept backing up until she suddenly tripped over a fallen pillar. However, she could tell her shots did take out an eye, thus sending the Rakk hive into blood rage.

The Rakk Hive lost any sense of self-preservation, and focused on the threat doing the most damage to it, Gaige. It charged at Gaige, and before Gaige could get out of the way, kicked Gaige into the crumbling temple walls. Gaige felt a couple of ribs crack from the impact, and she felt her vision blurring, probably from the internal bleeding.

She however gazed upwards, and saw that the Rakk Hive was rearing up on its hind legs, and she could tell it was going to smash her into a puddle of blood and guts. Despite the pain, she forced herself to roll out of the way, as the mighty beast slammed into the earth. The impact caused the temple walls to finally collapse into fine marble dust, covering Gaige. The Hive roared, thinking it had killed Gaige, before turning its attention to the other three.

Erica was slashing madly with her sabre, her flame suit underneath her armor keeping her safe from the fire the flame Rakks were spitting at her. She saw the Rakk Hive turnaround from the corner of her eye, and knew she had to finish with the Rakks before the Hive got too close.

Drawing her sabre back, she poised herself to strike at the flame Rakks while activating her semblance. Unlike many people's semblances, which allowed for the creation of mirror images of themselves, using glyphs, or putting themselves into a raging inferno, Erica's semblance put her into an zen-like state, focusing on her target and nothing else.

She launched herself at the Rakks, and began slashing with her sabre at speeds that rivaled even the best of swordsman. She cut the wings off the blasted beast before slicing its head off. The next one tried to burn her with its flame, but Erica side stepped, twirling around to the back of the other flame Rakk and stabbing the beast in the back, severing the spinal column. The final flame Rakk, upon seeing its comrade's death, tried to flee, but Erica grabbed the tail of the winged beast with her off hand and brought her sabre down the length of its spine, severing the beast in two.

Erica, Robert, and Nash then saw the remaining Rakks retreating into the forest, leaving only the juggernaut that was the Rakk Hive left to fight. She saw only a couple of options for fighting the Rakk Hive; stand and hold their grounds pummeling away at the beast and hope to kill it through sheer attrition, retreat and find a more opportune area to fight the beast, or cripple the beast enough to get away and make it out of the initiation alive.

However, the Rakk Hive forced the fight, charging at the three young hunters. Robert and Nash ran to the left with Erica ran to the right, causing the Rakk Hive to split Erica from the others.

"Erica, you got a plan?" Nash called out. Erica pulled her flamethrower out and nodded; she had a plan, she just wasn't sure it was going to work.

"Nash, I'm going to set the beast's underbelly hair aflame!" Erica said. "You and Robert focus on hitting the face of the beast!" Nash and Robert nodded, each taking aim at the beast's head. Erica took the hive's focus to her advantage as she began to close the distance when the Beast turned to face Nash and Robert.

"Burn you damn beast and return from the pit you came from!" Erica yelled as she pulled both sets of triggers on her flamethrower. This caused her normal fuel to mix with a napalm mixture that contained the materials needed for a thermite reaction. The flames reached the Hive's underbelly, and soon the Beast roared in pain, as the flames and the thermite began to burn the beast and cut through its thick skin.

"Keeping burning it!" Nash said. He was about to say more when the Hive began to rhythmically smash into the ground with its front legs, sending wave after wave of shockwaves at Nash and Robert. Robert fell to the ground, while Nash couldn't continue to aim at the Hive's eyes or mouth.

The Hive was thinking about who to kill. The boys in front of it were annoying, especially the one with the massive cannon, but the one wielding the flames was doing significant damage to them. It decided to finish the boys offs, and reared on its hind legs, walking closer to the boys in the attempt to squish them into the ground by slamming with its front legs. It would've done that, had something not smashed itself into rear leg.

Shocked by the sudden pain, the Beast misaimed its landing, and missed the boys by a couple of meters, with the resulting shockwave knocking down a couple of trees. It tilted its head, to see the girl it thought it kill on its hip, her left arm aglow with 2 blue blades deep in the thigh.

"Try killing me now, you dumb ugly mother fucker!" Gaige yelled, and she aimed Rex Tremendae at the Hive's face. She fired the entire magazine into the hive's mouth, and the hive shook its head in pain. Gaige decided enough was enough, and activated Deathtrap.

"Deathtrap, go for the head!" Gaige commanded. "Rip the Hive's face off!" Deathtrap glided over to the face of the Hive, and began pummeling the beast in the face, aiming first for the eyes. Gaige decided now to activate the Tyrant Code, to see it work in action. The results weren't all she was expecting.

At first, everything seemed to work just fine, with Deathtrap's eye turning from a light red to a darker one, and his strikes became faster, harder, and stronger than before. He let off a series of laser blast into the Rakk Hive, the laser became wider and hotter than before. But for Gaige, the Tyrant code began to affect her.

She noticed that her gunfire became more concentrated and damaging, while her left arm began to form sparks. The sparks, while something she wouldn't be concerned with normally, began to engulf her entire body, and she screamed in pain as tens of thousands of volts ripped through her body. She lost her grip on the hive, and she began to fall.

She managed to land on her feet, but she felt a compulsion to keep attacking, despite the pain. She began slashing at the Hive's rear legs, and her claws ripped through the thick skin , causing blood to spill forth like a fountain. In addition, she saw that each strike was electrocuting the Hive.

She saw that Nash and Robert took the Hive's inability to attack and laid into the hive, blasting into the weakened underbelly, while Erica kept lighting new areas of the Hive with her flamethrower. They knew that the Hive was going to die soon, so they didn't let up. It was when one of Robert's shells finally busted the stomach of the Hive, did it start to fall.

"Move!" Gaige yelled, as the Hive began to slump to the ground, defeated at last. The four ran from the beast and the ensuing shockwave, which leveled some nearby trees. With one final groan, the Rakk Hive closed its eyes, dead from the loss of blood.

The four hunters had different reactions to the falling of the Hive. Robert was groaning, his shoulder now beginning to bruise from the amount of shelling he done. Nash was cursing up a storm, his disbelief that anything could be so tough to beat existing. Erica was looking over her armor and weapons, sighing at the mere thought of having to repair her armor due to the acid.

But Gaige was the one suffering the worst. In her mind, she was racing to explain everything to the four. They heard Handsome Jack, and she knew she would need to explain her situation. But how she didn't know. They didn't know of Pandora, of Eridium, of what Angel was going through. She didn't know how to explain as to properly explain she would need them to belive her, but unlike Ozpin, General Ironwood, and the professors of Beacon, she doubted they would believe her without something concrete.

Besides the mental race going on in her head, physically Gaige was now beginning to feel the repercussions of activating the Tyrant code. Her left arm was still sparking with electricity, causing her intense pain in its connections. Also, Gaige felt her entire shake with tremors from the electrocution that knocked her off the hive. She needed to get out of the forest, and fast.

"Guys, we got the relic," Gaige began. "Let's get the fuck out of here before those Rakks, or even the Grimm, return." Erica nodded.

"Of course," Erica said, agreeing. "Besides, I am low on flamethrower fuel, and I doubt you guys have much ammo left." Nash and Robert shrugged.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Nash said, as soon the growling an howling of Beowolves caught up to them. The four began to run to the cliff, only hearing the Grimm to check out of the remains of the Rakk Hive.

* * *

><p>"Gaige Asimov, Robert Moran, Erica Sherman, and Nash Quigley," Ozpin stated, while speaking into a microphone. Gaige and the others were in the auditorium, still in their combat gear, standing side by side. "You collected the black rook piece. From this day forth, you will be known as Team Green (GREN), led by Gaige Asimov."<p>

There was some clapping, and the four stepped off stage, waiting for the rest of the inductions to finish up. Gaige sighed; she needed to get some rest, and her body was still trembling from the shocks she endured. She knew that the others would demand answer and-

She and the others heard Gaige's echo device beeping again. Not wanting anyone else overhearing them, they stepped out into the hallway. Gaige sighed and pressed the answer button.

"You are all fucking assholes, you know that right?" Jack said. "You couldn't just die Gaige, and you three fucktards couldn't leave her behind, now could you? No, you had to be the fucking bad guys and ruin my, the good guy, plans."

"So Jack," Gaige began. "What is your grand plan? Going to try and take over Vale, send more of those beast at Beacon, what is it?" Jack laughed.

"You know, for being the bad guy Gaige, you surely lacked the imagination needed to come up with a working plan," Jack insulted the mechromancer. "No, I have grander ambitions, one that expands anything you could come up with."

Gaige began to grit her teeth in anger. Was Jack really going to experiment with the people of Remnant like he did on Pandora? She knew he probably would, but with what?

"Any way, just thought I would let you know," Jack continued. "Next time, I won't send a simple Rakk Hive at you. I know Gaige you know what I mean, but I seriously doubt you three other fuckers know what is going to hit you." The call ended, leaving the others to look at Gaige.

"Um, why does he sound like he has an army or something?" Nash asked. Gaige was about to answer when she heard someone clearing their throat behind them.

"That is because he does, or rather did," Ozpin said. The four jumped slightly. "I saw the footage of your fight with that Rakk Hive, and I no doubt know that Jack something to put you three-" Ozpin pointed to Erica, Nash, and Robert "At odds with Gaige, so what was it?"

Nash glared at Gaige before he responded.

"This Jack fellow mentioned that Gaige killed his daughter and she admits to it!" Nash seethed. "Did you know about it sir?" Ozpin nodded.

"Indeed I did," Ozpin stated. Nash's eyes bugged out.

"Then why the hell is she here instead of in prison?!" Nash lashed out. "There isn't an excuse for killing a child!" Ozpin sighed.

"Mr. Quigley, if someone was being forceful injected with a chemical that caused intense pain for years, locked up in a prison and who asked you to put them out of their misery, would you deny them that?" Ozpin asked. At Nash's silence, he continued.

"You leader didn't want to kill Jack's daughter, but was forced to through circumstance. I know this because I've seen the footage she had at the time of Jack's daughter's death," Ozpin stated calmly. "I assure you, Jack's daughter Angel didn't die due to malicious intent on Gaige's part, but rather out of mercy."

A period of silence followed, with the other threes comprehending Ozpin's word and knowing it was the truth. Finally, Erica spoke up.

"Can we see the footage ourselves to see that what you say is true?" Erica asked. Ozpin shrugged.

"It is not my footage to share, but Gaige's. I no doubt believe she would share you the footage, but for now I think you guys should rest up, as classes start in the morning tomorrow." He walked off, leaving Team GREN to contemplate his words. Gaige looked at the others, before pressing some buttons on her echo.

"Here's the video file with the audio file intact," Gaige stated. "Watch it or don't, I don't care, it was a while back. Right now, I need to get rest, so please be quiet while I am sleeping."

The others nodded in silence, and the four headed to their dorms, with the three beginning to watch in morbid fascination the fight in Angel's chamber once they got to their dorms. They saw to their horrors what was happening to Angel, watching Angel die in Roland's arm, and they saw the moment Jack appeared and shot Roland and imprisoned Lilith. The three looked over at their leader, who was asleep, and were left wondering what Jack was up to that would force Gaige's hands in killing Angel.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: Ugh, this was a bit of a bitch for me to write up. The Rakk Hive fight in Borderlands one was basically a ammo dump of a fight, so I tried to make the Rakk Hive into the monster it should've been. <strong>

**Now, I will say one thing as I got a review stating a concern the reader had; I won't put too much 'video game logic' into the story. I will explain things that appear in Borderlands and make them relatable, but if I can't, I won't. As such, enemy's won't have levels, health pools, and they won't do things that conflict with the world of Remnant (too much at least). So with that out of the way, next chapter will be about the first day, and Team GREN's interactions with the others (RWBY and JNPR). Until next time, please follow, favorite, and review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: First Day as a Huntress in Training**

* * *

><p>"Tsk, fuck my shoulder hurts," groaned Gaige as she woke up, the pain in her shoulder socket still in pain, though it was more of a dull pain than the extreme pain of yesterday. She looks at her dorm room, and sighs as the others were still asleep in their bed. Rather thankfully, the room they had gotten was fully refurbished, and thus they had two bunk beds on either side of the room, with a folding desk that could be placed in-between the two just under the window.<p>

She got up and began to change into Beacon Academy's uniform. While she was used to wearing a skirt, the long sleeves of the shirts annoyed Gaige, as the fabric tended to catch on her robotic arm. Besides, she likes the feel of a breeze on her right arm, giving her a reminder that it was normal. Gaige didn't have a problem with the color pattern (a dark brown coat, white shirt, and red plaid skirt), so when she finished dressing, she decided to check her echo device to see if Deathtrap was okay and to figure out what caused the Tyrant code to misbehave.

She first began by running a diagnostic scan on Deathtrap, making sure that none of his vital functions were damaged or corrupted with the installation of the Tyrant code. She saw that his systems were acting as they should; albeit at a slightly higher rate than normal, but that was a good thing. She then began scrolling through the codes, trying to see where the sparks came from.

Two hours later, and she still hadn't found the source of the Tyrant code's alter state. She saw that all programs of Deathtrap were working as intended; hell they were running better than before she installed the Tyrant code. She assumed that it being hours after defeating the Rakk Hive the code would shut down (similar to Discord, a code she used once before deciding it wasn't worth the effort), but it appeared to still be running. Frowning, she decided to see how it was interacting with her anarchy codes, and she groaned as she saw what was happening.

"God damn it, why is the Tyrant code continually eating at my Anarchy?" Gaige whined. "It shouldn't be doing that; it should take the stacks I accumulated, use those stacks in a one-time cost, and give an output. So why is it continually taking and producing an output?"

She paused, wondering if she should remove the Tyrant code. If she did, she would be back to using anarchy to get improved damage output at the cost of accuracy. But the output the code was giving her was beneficial; Deathtrap was running better than before, and she got the shock attack attached to her melee without having to invest in a new set of codes.

She decided to give the code a trial run, and turned her echo off, just as her teammates got up.

"Good morning," Gaige said calmly to Robert, who moaned into his pillow.

"Morning," Robert replied. "What time is it?" Gaige looked at a clock.

"It's seven thirty," Gaige replied, and saw Nash roll out from the bottom bunk across the room. "That looked comfortable," Gaige said sarcastically. Nash chuckled.

"Morning to you to," Nash said. He paused for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Gaige, I want to apologize for my outburst yesterday. I didn't know what Angel had-" Gaige shrugged, interrupting Nash.

"Look Nash, I knew exactly where you were coming from," Gaige said. "You were acting like a normal person would. I would be shocked if you didn't hate me before you saw what happened to Angel and I wouldn't be shocked if you still did. It's in the past, nothing either of us could do about it."

Nash nodded, and Gaige began to wander her eyes to the top bunk across the room. She was shocked to see that Erica Sherman, the black knight, was in pair of pink pajamas, her red hair flowing down to her shoulder, and her red eyes groggily opening up. Gaige hadn't seen Erica change last night as she hit the sack hours before the others did, and Erica had worn her gas mask at the initiation ceremony.

"Oh my god," Gaige breathed, flabbergasted by how girlish Erica looked. Nash and Robert snickered.

"You had the same reaction as we did," Nash said. At this point, Erica was glaring at the trio.

"Hey, this is comfortable to sleep in," Erica growled out un-angelic. "Don't judge me based on what I wear to bed." Gaige shook her head, trying her best not to laugh. Erica swung off her bed and began collecting her uniform before going to the bathroom to change. When the door closed, the three teammates snickered at the pajamas.

"My god, that was hard not to laugh at," Nash said. "There couldn't have been a more girlish pair of clothing ever." Robert shook his head.

"Nope, I think my younger sister has her beat," Robert said. "Her pajamas have ponies on them, which thankfully Erica's don't." Nash shook his head.

"Your sister is eight though; on her, those girlish pajamas are considered cute," Nash countered. As the two friends argued back and forth over the semantics of what constituted girlish, Gaige was beginning to consider her deal with Ozpin. She knew she had to begin somewhere, so why not begin with her teammates?

"Hey guys, can you shut up for a minute?" Gaige asked. "I have a proposition for you." At this Nash and Robert stopped their conversation, and Erica came out of the bathroom fully dressed in the school uniform.

"What kind of proposition are we talking about?" Robert asked first. Gaige brought up her Dahl , and showed it to them.

"As you guys know, I'm an engineer, and as such I often used programs such as this to improve my performance," Gaige began. "What I am offering is that I build you guys your own and help you with calibrations of the software." The three looked at her, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

"What would be in it for you?" Erica said. Gaige shrugged.

"I actually have a deal with Ozpin to fufill," Gaige explained. "He was interested in the combat capabilities of my software slash hardware and wanted to see how they would work with other hunters. So I would be improving your fighting abilities and I fulfill my promise to Ozpin."

Erica nodded, her question finished. Nash and Robert however fired off their questions almost immediately.

"How can a program improve my capabilities in battle?" Nash said. "I trained to use my rifle very effectively, and I doubt a computer program will make me a better shot."

"Same here," Robert said. "But I made my turret to suit my needs, so while I am not as well trained as Nash, my turret is capable of wrecking things up." Gaige chuckled at the boy's questions.

"Well, to answer you guys' question, the program works by being in synched with you," Gaige began. "It learns your patterns, your tendencies, and offers ways to either compensate for your weakness or buff your strengths. As for your turret Robert, the program is smart enough to offer upgrade options, like with my Deathtrap unit. It offers an upgrade code, and I install it, improving Deathtrap's combat performance."

The two boys were about to speak up when the boys' stomachs growled. Nash sighed.

"Screw it, let's get something to eat and talk about this later, kay?" Gaige and Erica nodded, and the four made their way into the cafeteria.

* * *

><p>"Dear god how many pancakes can Nora eat?" asked Robert, his eye twitching as his brain tried to compute the bubbly bomber's pancake eating habits. The others meanwhile were in the middle of eating their breakfast. Nash went for a simple meal consisting of scrambled eggs and sausages, Erica had a plate of hash browns and bacon, and Gaige was mulling over their class schedule while eating a bowl of cereal.<p>

"Robert, eat your plate of hash already," Gaige stated. "We don't need to be hungry today, as we have classes today." Gaige saw they had first Grimm Studies with Professor Port (she was going to enjoy his over the top stories). That was followed by various other classes that Gaige could've cared less about, before classes ended at three in the afternoon.

"So," Ren spoke up addressing team GREN. "What was that thing you guys fought yesterday?" Gaige raised an eyebrow.

"Er, what?" Gaige asked. Nora then spoke up.

"You know, that Goliath like beast with a ugly mouth, multiple eyes, and had flying snakes coming out of its back?" Nora provided. "It looked like such a monster, much more terrifying than the Deathstalker we fought, right guys?"

The others of team JNPR nodded.

"Yeah, when we were watching your guy's initiation, we saw that massive beast you guys fought," Pyrrha stated calmly. "It wasn't a Grimm, so what was it?" Gaige shook the shock of the first round of initiates watching their initiation to answer.

"Er, it was a Rakk hive," Gaige explained. "They usually are found in deserts, and they have a symbiotic relationship to the Rakk, the flying snakes as Nora put them." The Ren raised an eyebrow.

"But we never saw anything quite like it before," Ren said. "I remember having a massive collection of encyclopedias of both Grimm and non-Grimm species that have been categorized, and never once was that beast documented."

Gaige felt a sweat roll down her back. How the hell was she going to explain herself out of this one? Thankfully for her however, Erica spoke up.

"Didn't you explain Gaige that the Rakk Hive usually stays dormant underground, only exposing its back?" Erica asked rhetorically, offering her leader a way out. "So in theory researchers could've been walking past them, and not disturbed the hive."

Ren nodded, not totally buying the reason but stopped fishing for information. At this point, Pyrrha looked at Gaige.

"So guys, how about we hang out after classes today?" Pyrrha suggested. "We could get to know each other better, maybe have a friendly little spar?"

"Oh yeah!" Nora said. "I want to test Magnhild against Gaige's deathtrap! I bet I could smash it, although I probably shouldn't because it would be difficult to rebuild, right? Oh well, maybe I will refrain from doing too much damage, and just go for knocking Gaige out!"

"You know Nora," Gaige began. "People don't like the idea of getting knocked out, so perhaps you should maybe not be so enthusiastic about knocking people out?" Nora pondered on this for a moment.

"Maybe your right…" She said, before pounding her fist together. "I got it, instead of knocking people out, I will break their legs!" And thus began Nora's obsession with breaking legs. Gaige could only facepalm and sigh, unbelieving that her attempt to get Nora tone downed. At this point, a bell began to chime quietly, marking the end of breakfast, and the start of classes.

"C'mon guys, we need to head to Professor Glynda's combat tactics class," Gaige told her team. Unlike Team JNPR, who would be heading to Port's Grimm Studies, Team GREN was heading to Glynda's combat tactics class, which was to improve team performance. This included communication, leadership skills, and team building exercises, with team sparring being the main focus of the class.

"See you guys after classes today," Gaige said to team JNPR, who were heading down the hallway to Port's classroom. Jaune nodded.

"Yeah, see you later," Jaune replied. Gaige and the others headed to the auditorium, wondering how the first class would be.

* * *

><p>Team GREN was sitting in the middle of the bleachers, overlooking a field with a mock city. Gaige pondered for a moment why the field had a mock city? If the purpose of beacon was to train hunters to ward off and kill the Grimm, surely a forest would be a better environment. She glanced at Erica who was sitting to her right with Nash on Erica's right, while she noted Robert was to her left.<p>

Glynda strolled in front of the bleachers, her riding crop in her hand. She took a quick glance at the class before nodding to herself (_probably to make sure everyone who is supposed to be here is here_, Gaige thought.).

"All of you here have shown yourself capable of handling threats by yourself," Glynda started, pacing back and forth in front of the bleachers. "However, the Grimm are not mindless beasts, despite what others say. They learn from each encounter, becoming smarter, more adaptable, and even more vicious than before."

"Therefore, you must learn to work with others when in the field. However, sometimes the foes you fight are not the Grimm, as sometimes huntsmen are sent to remote villages or towns that lack a central police system that Vale has to deal with serial killers, terrorists, and others that wish harm to the citizens of the four kingdoms. As such, this class will focus on improving your ability to work with your teammates, as well as deal with these more human threats."

Gaige realized that the field was for training against the threats that aren't Grimm. She could see a number of scenarios being run here; from hostage rescue to pursuing an enemy in a crowded environment. Gaige saw that Erica wanted to pound her head into something, as she was regretting making her flamethrower her primary weapon.

"But I think we should begin with seeing how you, as novice, would handle a situation," Glynda stated. "Therefore, each team will be given a scenario to run through, and they will attempt to complete their objective as quickly as possible, when in the end we will review what they did right, and what they did wrong."

Most of the class began buzzing, wondering who would be up first and what their scenario would be. Gaige was desperately hoping they wouldn't be first as…

"Team GREN, after changing into your combat clothes, please proceed to the field to begin your first scenario," Glynda ordered. _Or we just go first, and screw getting some tips from those that precede us. _

_~45 minutes later~_

Many think of Professor Ozpin as an oddity. He was rarely if ever seen without his cup of coffee, he was always calm, never angry, and he seemed way more relaxed than others in his position would be. After all, dealing with hormonal young adults with lethal weapons and training that made them think they were on top of the world drove many mad. But not Ozpin.

He knew that time could iron out the kinks out of system. A person that is too hyperactive can be mellowed with humbling experiences and learning from their mistakes. A person shut out from others will open up with time with teammates that care for one another. Of course there are rare exceptions where it doesn't work, but Ozpin didn't fret too much on the rare exceptions; after all the world wouldn't be what it is if everything was in order, rank and file, going according to societal norms.

Which was why it was certainly an exceptional moment seeing Ozpin staring at the sight of Glynda's Combat Tactics Class dumbfounded at the carnage in front of him. The once pristine field that was a mockup of a typical Valen outskirt town looked more akin to a war zone.

Many of the buildings had bullet holes, a couple were on fire. Many of the volunteer actors that Beacon had hired to act as stand in for the village were not acting like they were on the normal script, which was for only a select few to be hostile to the team, the rest being civilians ranging from neutral citizens who didn't care about what was going on to those who supported the hostiles. But all the actors were armed, and trying to push on the village center, where he could see (thanks to being on the bleachers) Team GREN holding out.

"What the hell did we do to piss everyone off?!" Nash yelled, while picking off some of the actors who were acting like snipers.

"I don't know!" Robert replied, blasting a building in front of him with his cannon, clearing it out of the actors. "Who would've thought going to the bar was a bad idea?" Ozpin wondered what exactly happened in the bar.

"It would've been fine," Erica started, pausing to unleash a torrent of flames at a group that was taking Robert's cannon's time to reload to approach it and try to disable it. "If Nash hadn't decided to start a bar fight because one of the patrons was hitting on one of the girls and decided to step in!"

"How could I know that the two were actually dating?!" Nash retorted, punching one of the chargers in the face, knocking him out. "I thought the guy was acting like a conceited asshole! Anyway, what Robert did with Gaige at the warehouse paled in comparison to what I did!"

"Screw you buddy!" Robert yelled. "Me and Gaige had found the terrorist hide out, but we didn't know that the police were in on the take!" Ozpin sighed; of course Glynda choose to do the corrupt-cops-helping-terrorist-smuggling scenario for the first course. Of course, it usually ends with the team being reprimanded for not investigating the scenario carefully, but who could blame them; they only had an hour and a half to complete the scenario.

"Shut up and deal with the men on the rooftops Nash!" Gaige yelled. "Robert, pulled back your turret; it is overheating and is getting in the way of Erica covering the south street. I will deploy Deathtrap again to cover you!"

Ozpin watched a few minutes more, amazed that while the situation was completely FUBAR (yes, Beacon recognizes FUBAR as a legitimate and totally acceptable response to situations that escalate out of control), team GREN was holding onto their ground. Shaking the initial shock of the chaos unfolding in front of him, Ozpin walked over to Glynda.

"Shouldn't you perhaps pull the plug on this scenario?" Ozpin suggested. "I think that the scenario has escalated outside the parameters of what you were trying to achieve with it." Glynda nodded slowly.

"Yeah, but a part of me doesn't understand how this situation got out of hand," Glynda admitted. "It was like a bunch of little things just culminated into this disaster of a scenario." Ozpin nodded.

"So what happened?" Ozpin asked. "I heard some things from Team GREN, but not enough to get the full picture." Glynda took out her scroll, and as Ozpin got the highlights of this scenario, she began to explain.

"Well, they did a little bit of everything that other teams have done in the past," Glynda said. "They split up, one pair getting intel from the locals, the other pair checking out likely hideout locations. The first pair managed to stir up the hornets' nest, inciting the locals into a large scale brawl at the bar."

"Yeah I heard that," Ozpin said. "Didn't Qrow and his team, when they were at Beacon, do the exact same thing?"

"Yes," Glynda confirmed. "And it would've been fine, had the other pair not stumble on the warehouse when the cops and the terrorists were making the exchange, and then caused a massive firefight. The ensuing firefight managed to take place to the center of the town, along with the bar brawl, and when Team GREN began their stand, everyone involved in both fights began calling in back up, which led to this fiasco."

Ozpin watched the other teams grimace at the sight when the Riot control detachment of the police arrived and unleashed tear gas at Team GREN's position. Soon, the four young hunters were surrounded, and completely made combat ineffective (they got the shit beat out of them in other words), resulting in the end of the scenario.

"So, that happened," Ozpin noted. "I suppose next time we instruct the actors in their duties better; I don't think that would happen normally."

"I agree," Glynda said. "However, I have a class to instruct, so I better get to it." Ozpin sighed at Glynda's retreating figure, approaching the battered team, her face showing her lack of amusement at the situation. Ozpin took a sip of his coffee before moaning; how did it get cold?

* * *

><p>It was now dinner, and Gaige was mulling over meatloaf while listening to Jaune recant there first lesson. He was explaining the fight between Weiss and the Boarbatusk (the heavily armored Grimm counterpart to a boar), and the resulting detonation of Weiss on Ruby. Meanwhile her teammates were recounting the horror that was their first lesson.<p>

"So wait, you got the entire town to rise up against you?" Ren asked. When Nash solemnly nodded, Ren shook his head.

"That is, by far, the most horrible thing I have heard. How did it end, did Professor Glynda end it?" Erica snorted.

"I wish," the black knight said, drinking a protein smoothie. "We got tear gassed before she could call off the scenario, and the actors had to be pryed off of us."

"The actors were beating you up why?" Pyhrra asked. "Aren't they supposed to end the scenario when you can't fight?"

"Probably," Robert said. "But I think they were caught up in their anger to kick our asses due to Gaige's Deathtrap and my turret." At this Gaige high fived Robert. "Robots are for the win, but they sure do piss people off."

"I see," Ren stated. "So what are you guys going to do next time?" The four of Team GREN deadpanned at Ren.

"Not what we did last time," Team GREN responded in unison. The others turned back to their meal while Robert continued with the conversation. "I know Gaige mentioned to us about giving us some battlefield hardware to improve our combat capabilities, but I don't know when. Gaige, any idea on when what you mentioned this morning will be ready?"

Gaige shrugged, having spent the classes after the fiasco with the first class (and trying to clear herself of the tear gas) thinking about what to give each of her teammates, as they had different combat styles and focuses.

Nash was a marksman specialist, favoring the use of his lever action rifle _Freedom_ over getting close in with a knife, so she would need to design his hardware to improve accuracy, damage, maybe even ammo capacity. Robert favored using his turret to cover him while he provided heavy firepower, thus making Gaige lean towards giving Roberts upgrades to his turret and maybe even his cannon. Finally, Erica was either crowd control (with the flame thrower) or the tank (paired with her armor and her sabre), which meant Gaige have to design a completely unique program to handle her style of battle.

With the needs of three entirely different fighting styles, with little resemblance to one another short of their favoring mostly distance combat (Gaige and Erica could handle themselves up close decently, and Nash in a pinch), designing their hardware would take time. If she was to guess, if she wanted to present them with a finalized program, with only a week to synchronize them to the user…

"Maybe two weeks?" Gaige offered. "It depends on how much time I have, how much resources I have, and if I don't get distracted by the lessons." Robert nodded.

"Very well," Robert said. He wiped his face with a napkin. "Well, I am done eating, see you guys in the dorm."

"Hey, wait up for me," Nash said, hurriedly taking his plate and following Robert to dump the plate off and leave, leaving Erica and Gaige to chat with Team JNPR. Gaige turned back to Jaune and their earlier conversation.

"So, Weiss bit off Ruby's head because Ruby was giving advice to Weiss during the fight?" Gaige asked. Jaune nodded.

"It wasn't only that, but that was a large portion of it," Jaune said. "Apparently she believed she didn't need the advice, and that it was distracting to her. I don't know where Weiss and Ruby are now, but I hope this doesn't become a regular thing."

"I agree," Gaige said. "Last thing I need on top of my training and my pet projects are for team-breaking drama. I hopefully got mine out of the way by now. So anything you guys are going to be up to?"

Ren shook his head.

"Not really," Ren stated. "Probably focus on the work load, train a little, and keep Nora from doing extremely crazy things. Sometimes keeping Nora in check is a work in and of itself."

"I know the feeling," Gaige said, remembering the horrors of trying to keep Claptrap happy. She liked the CL4-TP bot, sometimes, but he was a bit much, especially with his self-deluded sense of ability. But she did know that it was somewhat founded due to his adventures on Elpis, and was going to give the little bot his program back, before she ended up on Remnant, that also had a hidden personality file that would make him combat effective and not an annoying little robot.

"Anyway, we better get back to our dorm," Jaune said. "We're all done eating, and we have to finish setting our room up. See you guys later." Team JNPR got up and left, leaving just Erica and Gaige at the table. Erica looked over at Gaige, her eyes indicating she had something she wanted to talk about.

"Gaige, that file you let us watch," Erica began. "It wasn't from here, was it?" Gaige raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Gaige asked, wondering if Erica knew she wasn't from this world. Erica began listing off things mentioned in the videos with her fingers.

"Eriduim, those combat robots of which design I never seen before, that Siren Lilith, Angel, and even this Handsome Jack, they don't seem to be anything like you would find on Remnant. And that Rakk Hive, I know Ren was right, it isn't documented in any encyclopedia, book, or online source I have looked through. So tell me, what is the full story?"

Gaige sighed; she was thankful Nash and Robert, as smart as they were, either didn't notice these things or didn't care enough to ask. She pushed aside her plate to make room for her arms.

"Look, you're right," Gaige said. "But what could telling you about from which I come from do for you?" She saw Erica pulled up her scroll, and showed Gaige the video's last few moments, to where Handsome Jack made his appearance.

"I only want to know, just how dangerous is Handsome Jack?" Erica asked. Gaige looked at Erica. Here was a person her age that wasn't questioning the how or why she was on Remnant, or what Pandora was like, or how Jack was here. The only thing Erica wanted to know was the bigger picture; just how dangerous Jack was, therefore, Gaige chose not to lie.

"Handsome Jack is unlike anyone you've seen before from what I can gather," Gaige said. "He is the sort of person who finds pleasure in human experimentation, laughs at the sight of burning villages and crying children, and would do anything in the pursuit of power. In other words, he is by far the biggest threat you could imagine short of a genuine apocalypse."

Gaige could see in Erica's eyes that Erica was looking for some falsehood in Gaige's view of Jack, but couldn't find it. She closed her eye, sighing at the implications.

"Very well," Erica said. "Then I guess we better train ourselves in case we meet Jack again. You know him better than Nash, Robert, or I, so please, tell us what he is like, and prepare us for his wrath." Gaige nodded; while her debrief by Ozpin gave the professors of the academy and General Ironwood and idea of the danger Jack posed, they were concern withed the threats of the Grimm and those of the White Fang. So, she would take it upon herself to make Team GREN capable of dealing with Jack.

"Alright then," Gaige said. "Then I guess I better tell the other two and get you guys up to speed on Jack."

* * *

><p>Roman Torchwick, thief extraordinaire, hated working with the White Fang. He didn't like the Faunus too much; afterall, they were very much like some freak of nature. The only good the White Fang were for was a disposable army that threw itself to cover his operations. Which coincidentally was gathering as much dust, weapons, and supplies for Cinder, whose goals were still unknown to him.<p>

Taking a drag from his cigar, he looked at the map of Vale, noting the rough overview of the city. Corrupt cops that were in on his operations, where the wealthy aristocrats lived, the location of possible threats (most notably Beacon), and the locations of his next targets. It wasn't much on the surface, but he didn't keep all the plans on paper; oh no, he preferred keeping some information in his head.

He gazed as a White Fang group came into the warehouse, pushing another trolley full of Dust. Roman smirked; this operation was really beneath him, but his curiosity for what Cinder had in mind was too great for him to pass this job up. Plus, he got a lot out of the gig; money, suitable lackeys to take the fall for him, hell he even had a protégé now that was wonderful (and sadistic), Neo. Granted, he wished for something grand, like orchestrating a raid on one of Vale's military bases, or raiding Ironwood's private R&D labs, but unless Cinder cleared it, he would never get the chance.

A pity, he thought, watching the animals unloading the trolley, considering Ironwood's labs probably had several new toys that he would love to get his hand on. For instance, he heard they were making a large mech that was fitted with the latest in terms of target acquisition and firepower. Such a unit, while probably wasted on the grunts the White Fang had, would still do good against the line and file the kingdom's had for armies.

"Hurgh!" Roman turned his head to wonder what caused that choking sound, only to see one of the animals get choked out by a burly man with a goatee, graying hair, and cybernetic features. He saw the other raise his gun, only to have his head blasted off by a cowgirl with a purple trench coat and duster, toting two revolvers in her hands. Roman thought to go for his cane, only to hear someone clapping from behind the two.

"Bravo, bravo," mused the man in a yellow and gray suit, and a synethic mask over most of his face. "God how I miss seeing you two killing bandit scum in person."

"A pleasure as always boss," The cyborg replied. "This is better than being blown to pieces by those pesky Vault Hunters."

"And you always know that I am up for a good time," the cowgirl replied. "I miss actually going around, killing, torturing, and maiming bandits from sun up to sun down."

By now Roman realized that he was shit out of luck. Not like with Cinder, where she would send a lackey (like that green hair bitch or the all-grey douchebag) to do it for her. No, with these guys, he would be killed right now by their hands, and they would take pleasure in it. However, noting the fact that he was alive, he figured they wanted something.

"And here is the man of the hour!" plastic surgery face man called out. "Roman Torchwick, criminal mastermind and procurement specialist!"

"That's right," Roman replied. "I get the feeling you aren't here for a casual conversation are you?"

"Right you are," the obvious leader replied. "I have been around the area for some time, looking into the wonderful and abundant resources this… place has to offer, and can't help but want a piece of it. Therefore, I want to enlist your help."

Roman raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt. If the guy wasn't wanting the resources Cinder wanted, then why not take the guy's offer; more money (presumably) for him.

"What I want are two, maybe three things," the leader commented. "The first is relatively simply, I want Grimm; alive."

"You do realize that Grimm are highly dangerous and most die in captivity, right?" Roman asked. "I got the men to get them for you, not a problem, but explaining to… the one running this operation would be an issue if she noticed people were going missing for no reason."

"Oh, I do realize that, but I need them for an experiment," the man replied. "But the details of which aren't important to you as of yet. Next, I want all the information aviable about Dust; to include the classified information that the military is keeping quiet about."

Roman nodded; the information bit wasn't an issue, considering he was already compiling it for Cinder.

"And the final thing, Mr. ?" Roman asked, fishing for a name. The man laughed.

"Jack, Handsome Jack," Jack replied. "The final thing, no rush on this by the way, is in particular this lovely bitch." Jack handed Roman a file, and he saw an orange-hair girl with a robotic arm staring back at him. "I want her alive, and in one piece. Oh, bonus if you get her friends too; the info on them is behind her's."

Roman flicked through the file, noting that all were attending Beacon Academy. He mentally scowled; first there was the blonde bombshell that wrecked Junior's bar that was attending that academy, then little Red who ruined his robbery of a Dust store, and now this wonderful group. What was it with wannabe hunters fucking with his life?

"Alright, say I take this job," Roman began. "What do I get?" Jack smiled.

"Weapons that make these guns the animals carry around look like toys, men who are actual soldiers and not some two bit bandits, access to some top of the line equipment, and even, if you work out, a place within my ranks, to reap the benefits of what I am working towards," Jack explained. Roman smiled.

"Oh, I think I can work with this," Roman said, closing the file, extending his hand out for a shake. "And tell me, who are your two lieutenants?" Jack took his hand, giving a firm shake.

"The one to my right is Wilhelm, my personal enforcer and commander in the field," Jack said, indicating the cyborg. "And to my left is Nisha, interrogation specialist, law bringer, and my girlfriend."

Roman nodded to Wilhelm and Nisha, noting that the two looked like they have seen combat and were extremely capable of holding their own.

"So, how about we go into details with natures of my assignments?" Roman said, calculating the likelihood of this Handsome Jack being able to rival Cinder. He watch Wilhelm deploy two aerial drones from seemingly nothing, stating he was going 'to check the perimeter', and Nisha was examining the dust crystals with mild interest. As Jack began going into the details, Roman smirk; _if I do what he wants, I can actually get what I want, and without those dirty damn animals, _Roman thought.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: And that's a wrap! A new chapter, and with the beginnings of a new plot. While I like the original RWBY plot a lot, I hated how Cinder's plans are never really made clear. Does she want to take over Vale, destroy Beacon, what does the bitch want? **

**Anyway, we get (while not in too great of detail) Team GREN's first day at Beacon, and a look at Jack's plan. Don't worry, I won't spoil what Jack's plans are for you guys, just note that like Jack, it is going to be epic.**

**As always, please follow, favorite, and review!**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Running Calibration Checks and the Severance Package

* * *

><p>Gaige sighed contently, looking at the worktable in front of her. She had, in front of her, 6 new things that she already had that her teammates didn't. The first three were the most important things; her teammates' Dahl program, ready to be calibrated to their users. She knew it wouldn't take long, and then she could see the fruits of her labor.<p>

The other three were moderate shield generators; nothing fancy like her, but then again basic enough that they wouldn't have to worry about any negative outcomes (like weakened auras in her shield's case). They were strong enough to take a few hits from a Beowulf if she was correct, and it was an added layer of security for her team.

She stretched her arms, tired from having tinkered away at the programs and shields for the past two weeks. She was glad that her teammate Robert had taken diligent notes for her in class, as she was exhausted from tinkering well into the night to stay completely focus on Port's or Oobleck's lectures. They were interesting, don't get her wrong, but the constant ramblings of the teachers made her want to lull into sleep.

"Alright guys, they are complete," Gaige said, turning around to face her teammates. Robert and Nash had been busy playing a game of five card poker, while Erica was polishing her armor after having fixed it. The trio looked at her, eager to see what exactly the deal was with these programs.

"Alright," Gaige began, instructing her teammates. "Simply place the program somewhere on you, I would suggest maybe your hip, and turn on the program."

"Alright, sounds easy enough," Robert muttered. The trio turned on the programs, which lit up with a soft blue glow.

"Now, take out your scrolls, and there should be a request to synch the scroll to the program," Gaige continued to instruct. "Click continue, and while your is synching up, we will head to the training floor to calibrate them."

"Very well, lead on," Nash said, and GREN walked down the hallway, preparing for the. "So, how exactly will these calibrations work; I mean, it's not going to be painful, right?"

Gaige shrugged. For her, it most certainly wasn't painful, as most of her abilities were tied into her equipment and Deathtrap. However, she knew that Krieg's was truly painful, with most of his abilities being tied into his state of being, and some of the other Vault Hunters mentioned that they had to do some rather painful things to get a proper calibration.

"Um, hopefully not," Gaige answered. "I mean, I think Robert will have it the easiest because his calibration will be tied mostly into his turret and cannon. And don't forget, you and Erica have your semblances unlocked, so I think if we pair your devices to your respective semblances, we could get the calibrations done quickly and with little pain."

"Oh that's good," Nash said. "I don't want to deal with an injured arm or something akin to that outside of lessons. I much rather keep my aim sharp for dealing with the Grimm." Erica and Robert nodded quietly.

"Though Gaige," Erica said. "I know you gave us a quick explanation on Handsome Jack these past couple of days, but while we are doing calibrations, can you tell us what he might have at his disposal, who could be working for him, and what his goals are?"

"That would be good to know," Robert pitched in. "If he has weapons that could rival anything we field or personnel we need to be wary of, then we need to know when the times come."

"Very well," Gaige replied. "I will try and explain all of those things as best as I can, though to be honest a lot of my knowledge is probably out of date. He may have things that he kept hidden from our view, and as much as it pains me to admit it, he could have people that lived on Remnant on his side."

Erica and Robert raised an eyebrow in shock, but Nash's reaction was more violent. His face reddens, and he curled his hands into fists, his anger very much apparent.

"What possible reason would anyone work for a man like Jack?!" Nash snarled out. "Didn't you proclaim him to be an evil worse than any other?" Gaige sighed.

"Well, that is the thing," Gaige began to reply. "For all his faults, for all his evil, he has something that your people sorely lack." Gaige winced mentally as Nash glared at her. She would hate to break this bit of news; she remembered the faces of the General and the professors when she informed them of Jack's capabilities.

"And what could he have that we would want?" Nash asked.

"A veritable army to fight the Grimm," Gaige replied. "Due to his past as a programmer and his rise through the Hyperion Corporation gave him the means to build a literal robot army; one able to not only to fight on the field but also to construct forward bases, do on the field repairs, and even level entire cities in hours."

"But Atlas employs mechanized units in their military," Robert brought up. "Plus there is the air fleet Atlas maintains. Surely Jack can't have anything that competes with that." Gaige sighed as GREN walked into the training room.

The training room was a basic affair, with a shooting range at the far end for hunters with firearms, a sparing area that had both an area for a pair of hunters to train and dummy targets for solo hunters, and an assortment of workout machines. Besides the usual affairs, there was a maintenance area to make weapon repairs and modifications and a snack area to get water and some energy bars. Overall, it had everything a hunter in training needed.

"Okay guys, since we are here, I will need to focus on getting the initial calibrations set up, so I am going to have to pay attention to make sure nothing goes wrong," Gaige said. "Robert, deploy your turret in one of the sparing areas while Erica and Nash, get a couple of training bots. When I say begin, engage them using your semblances Erica and Nash, while Robot you allow your turret to do most of the work."

Gaige pulled out her Echo device and prepared to observe the others' devices begin synching up. She just had to wait for the training bots to come out before she could begin. Soon, the training bots were deployed in the separate areas, and she ordered her team to begin their 'spars'.

Erica activated her semblance first, and while using _Cleansing Flame_, she began to aim for the target bots' weak spot just underneath their 'neck'. She unleashed the taps of her second nozzle, and began spraying her thermite-mixed napalm unto the poor bots. Gaige monitored and noticed that her device was at 25% complete.

Nash meanwhile was slowing time slowly, and fired Liberty at the bots, who sadly were melee enemies. He kept scoring critical hits on the bots' head unit, which meant that he didn't have much trouble dealing with them. Gaige saw that while his semblance gave him quite the advantage, he couldn't maintain it for long.

Robert meanwhile was matched against the long range bots, and was sadly huddling behind his turret. Gaige watched as the turret, while nowhere near as fast firing as Axton's Dahl turret, had more explosive punch to their shells and tended to rip apart the robots. Robert finally had enough and began using his cannon, despite Gaige's orders, and fired upon the robots, directing the turret's gun fire more effectively.

This continued for a about fifteen more minutes, until Gaige saw all three bars on her echo device reached 100%. She smiled; that meant that the calibrations were complete, and she could help the others with navigating the program to get what they wanted.

"Alright, you guys are done with calibrations," Gaige said. "Now you should be able to open the program and it will give you a detailed outlook of the benefits it will be providing you." The others nodded, ending their combat trials and exiting.

"Alright, time to see what this program of yours does," Nash said, wiping the sweat off his brow. He was the first to see his program's results. "Ah, well this is interesting."

"What is it?" Gaige asked, jumping off her bench. Nash pointed his tree. Gaige looked at the 'perks' the tree had. It mostly was about improving his marksmanship, which definitely suited his style of fighting.

"Increased accuracy while on the move, increased critical, chance to auto-critical hit enemies, oh chance to rebuff your aura instantly, those are nice for a marksman such as yourself," Gaige said. Before Nash could ask about how the program did it, Robert was the next to test the new improvements.

He threw out his turret, which Gaige saw had something similar to Axton's longbow upgrade, which deployed with two other turrets deploying in line with each other. Gaige looked at the turrets, and noted each had two double gun turrets with a longer barrel and were slightly larger than Robert's original _Devastator _turret.

"Huh, I guess the program works," Robert asked, rubbing his head in confusion. "I like the Dreadnought upgrade, and that deployment thing will be a life saver to be sure, also it made it lighter, which I won't complain about."

"Same thing here," Erica announced. "I noticed that this little program has made both my armor and _Cleansing Flame_ much lighter, improve my semblance, and it seems to include a method to keep my flamethrower from overheating. Thanks Gaige."

"No problem," Gaige replied. "So since we appear to be done with the calibrations, you guys still up for hearing about Jack?" The others nodded.

"Yeah, that jerk stated he is after you and us now, so we need to be prepared," Nash stated. "So what has he got that we need to worry about?"

* * *

><p>"C'mon you damn animals, it's just a couple of beowolves; get them into the airship and deliver them to this location!" Roman yelled from atop the catwalk. He shook his head at the White Fang operatives, who were hesitant on getting close to the reinforced steel cage that were built to hold these beasts.<p>

The past two weeks had gone by seemingly well; for Cinder he continued robbing Dust stores, trains, and was planning on robbing a freighter in a week or two. The White Fang, being the ever eager animals they were, had listened to his orders to round up as many Grimm, ranging from Beowolves and Boarbatusk to Death Stalkers and Nevermores. Granted, many had 'unfortunate accidents' when Cinder (or rather Green bitch and grey douche) came by inquiring about a sudden lack of some White Fang personnel, but the rewards that Jack's lieutenant Wilhelm had delivered to him and his closer entourage (Neo the silent assassin, the information broker Junior and his two body guards Militia and Melanie Malachite, and finally Perry, the only White Fang operative that knew how the world should work), it was worth it.

The guns, my gods, the guns were worth it! Roman had customized his Melodic Cudgel to use a Hyperion Mining laser instead of that crappy dust launcher he was using before; being able to punch through a Deathstalker's thick armor like it was pudding! In addition, he knew Junior's henchmen were now using Hyperion SMGs and shotguns and were being (extremely quietly) trained by Hyperion's mercenary force, led by Wilhelm.

Roman pulled out a cigar and lit it, thinking about how to do the final request Jack had. The first two were relatively easy; the Grimm he sent the idiot animals to go fetch, and the information about Dust he copied and relayed to Nisha when he got the information Cinder wanted for some unknown blasted reason. But the third, collecting this Gaige person and offing her friends was a royal pain in the ass.

He didn't want to try and collect Gaige while she was at Beacon; that was a death sentence! While Beacon was officially a hunter's academy, it unofficially was a military and government complex, and had numerous defenses that would give anyone trying to invade a run for their money. It didn't help that practically everyone on grounds had a weapon of some sort, and thus it was like trying to rob a gun shop; everyone would fill you full of lead and kick your corpse out of the store.

He paused; even if he couldn't take the bitch while she was at Beacon, he knew very well that Beacon, as much as they tried, wasn't completely self-sufficent for their young student body. As a result, the nearby city of Vale was always open to the young hunters, who would pour money for dust, supplies, and luxary goods that simply weren't at Beacon. All he had to do was wait for her to come out of that veritable fortress and capture her while she was alone.

He grabbed his scroll, and quickly dialed Junior. He didn't have to wait long.

"Oh, hello Roman," Junior said, having already looked at the caller ID. "How can I help you today?" Roman chuckled.

"Junior, would you have any henchmen ready for a relatively easy job?" Roman asked. "It involveds primarily of sitting at the Vale air shuttle terminal and watching for a particular person to come out from Beacon."

Roman heard Junior groan.

"Please tell me that this person wouldn't be a blonde chick with a pair of shotgun gauntlets?" Junior asked. Roman was half-tempted to asked, but refrained himself for the moment.

"No, actually, the person is a female, orange hair, robotic arm," Roman replied. "Our, ahem, _associate_ wants me to capture her, but she sadly is at Beacon." He didn't need to finish as junior completed the rest.

"Ah, so you want one of my men to sit on their ass and monitor the terminal for when your target comes out into the open," Junior said. "Yeah, thankfully I have three men up for the task. Due to your rather generous backer, I won't be asking for my usual fee for the men, half off for my men if it means pleasing the man."

Roman nodded, calculating the cost in his head. Five hundred lien every twenty four hours times three for each man, coming out to one thousand five hundred lien a day, which for him was barely a dent. He could afford those three men for well over a hundred days with the amount he has stolen, invested, and kept locked up in his various out of kingdom accounts.

"Yes, that will be fine," Roman replied. "Though the conditions are they aren't to harm the target, merely monitor her entering the Vale air terminal and to contact me. I would like to see what else our provider has for us, and if it means serving a young female at his feet, so be it."

"Alright, I'll get the men to the terminal and tell them the orders," junior replied. "Just be sure to have the money ready when it comes time to pay up; I'm still fixing my club up."

"Noted," Roman said. "Well, I got an operation to run, people to scam, and dust to rob, so I bid farewell." Roman ended the call, taking a draw from his cigar. Looking down upon the White Fang, he sighed; he really hated the White Fang, so presumptuous and ignorant in their thinking that humans would make them their equals if they waged a war of terror upon man. In all likelihood, the humans would do what they do against pest; exterminate them.

He began walking to his office, his mind now onto the prospect of what Handsome Jack was planning. Unlike Cinder, Handsome Jack was quite clear as to what his goal was; subjugation of Remnant under his command, eliminating any resistant forces, and gathering resources. The specifics of how Jack was doing this wasn't clear to Roman, but unlike Cinder again, Jack told him what he needed to work on.

If it meant that Roman had to gather Grimm and deliver them to Jack for some 'experiment' and collect this Gaige person, so be it. It certainly was a damn sight better than Cinder's 'get me my dust or I burn you alive' approach. While most would look at world conquest as a foolish goal, it was better than a goal whatever Cinder had in mind, and Roman was running with it.

He closed his office door, only to see Neo was sitting in his chair, eating an ice cream cone.

"Neo, how many times have I told you not to eat at my desk?" Roman asked.

"…" Neo shrugged, hopping off of Roman's chair and went to a corner. Roman knew that Neo was a mute due to an incident involving her father crushing her vocal chords, but still, it bothered him that Neo was able to communicate with him with mere gestures and eye glances.

"Did you get our package from Nisha?" Roman asked. Three days ago, Jack informed Roman that they were to be expecting a package, something described as 'big, blocky, and extremely dangerous'. Roman was naturally curious at that description, and thus was wondering when it will arrive.

Neo again shrugged and handed Roman a small manila package. Tearing it opened, it revealed both a note and two little dog tags, one with his name and the other with Neo. Handing Neo her dog tag and slipping his on, Roman began to read the note.

_ 'Hello master thief!' _the note began. _'I have delivered your and your body guard's severance package for Ms. Fall. To begin your loyal service to me, and me alone, simply press the big red button. The package will take care of the rest, and will ensure that you can leave the warehouse without those animals' _(Roman here chuckled; the White fang were pretty much animals to him.) '_chasing you down. I know you like Perry, and we managed to get him here- surprisingly he is one helluva assistant for Wilhelm- so you needn't worry about him getting involved with the severance deal. A car will be waiting outside with a video display that you and Neo can watch, showing the deal go down. Trust me, it will be worth it._

_And also, welcome to Hyperion Roman. You are starting as CFO for Hyperion's Vale branch, and as such you will have access to all the privileges that entails. Neo is CSO of the Vale Branch, and is still under your command. You will be working with some others, namely Nisha and Wilhelm, to ensure Hyperion's mission is a success. Good luck, and don't fail in your task._

_-Handsom Jack, CEO of Hyperion_

Roman smirked as he motioned for him and Neo to take the escape exit they had made in this warehouse, so as to leave the White Fang ignorant of their absence. Roman and Neo only had to walk a few feet after gliding down from their exit to see a rather nice car, one easily fit for an executive, and entered the awaiting car.

"Let's see what that package was," Roman muttered as he pressed the red button. The screen in front of him turned on, leaving Roman and Neo, each with a drink in hand on the nice leather seats, a front row view at what Jack's severance package entailed.

"Oh my, this is truly worth it," Roman muttered as the screen showed the ensuring carnage. Neo nodded, working on her Neapolitan milkshake. Roman chuckled darkly. "If this is just one of the toys Jack has, then I made a very wise decision after all."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: Merry Christmas (or happy holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas) everyone! Yes, I know, it has been a month, but I wanted to do something special for my readers, and this is just one of many things I published today for you guys. I updated one of my stories, published the first three chapters to a new story, and I will begin (slowly perhaps) the rewrite of two other ones! For more details, see either my AN for 'A Certain Scientific Angelica' or go to my profile page and read my Christmas update note. But onto this chapter's A/N!**

**Yeah, the first half I will admit wasn't the best chapter, but I needed to be done. I just so hard to make calibraitions for the three's interesting, and I have tried. I know next chapter I will be showing the results of said calibrations in their ultimate glory, but enough about that depressing bit.**

**The second half meanwhile, hehe, I had fun. I like Roman; he is a greedy, selfish, bigot of a thief that always manages to give Team RWBY a run for their money (I think Roman is supposed to end up in Ironwood's hand as per Cinder's plans), and thus I wanted to show his evilness in this chapter. Also, brownie points to whoever can guess what Handsome Jack's severance packages entails, and here is my hint; the package involves one of Borderland 2's most hated enemy.**

**That's all for now, and as always, please follow, favorite, and review! **


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